Three days ago I had a charity event to attend. Thinking I could get there early, I left 10 minutes early to get there in time to schmooze a bit and stuff my face with free food. When I got to the station, there was this rather surly man shooing people away from the subway entrance saying that the subway was closed. Oh, bother. I overheard various explanations from passers-by: shooting at Eglinton Station, signals out, another rush hour jumper. So I headed to the street to catch a shuttle bus.
There were people EVERYWHERE on the street. I saw tons of southbound shuttle buses but no northbound ones. Odd? Not for the TTC. I should note here that I have approximately $2.82 to my name and I had to use most of that to get on some form of public transit. I waited and waited and watched as all these shuttle buses came and went. Aargh!
I kicked the bus and I liked it, blank it all. Is this seriously where my tax dollars go? I struck up a conversation with this friendly bloke named Raj. He had to get to Finch so we both decided that on pain of death, we were getting on the next shuttle. Of course, no luck. People were being generally unpleasant the moment the bus doors opened, thus further reaffirming my hatred for the general population. The bus doors closed and drove off in a cloud of carbon emissions on its way to disappoint more people.
Raj caught the attention of 2 women in a car heading northbound. They asked him what was going on and he told them about the busted subway. Then Raj asked them where they were going and they said Eglinton. Raj looks at me as if to say, do you wanna ride? The women offered to drive us to Eglinton. Sure, I got in car with 3 complete strangers. I did have my phone on me and my trusty mini-bottle of Lysol just in case someone wanted their eyes disinfected.
Out of all this, I find out that Raj is some big cheese at a credit union and could possibly hook me up with job à Montréal. I don't care what anyone says, that's Providence at work. He gave me his business card and told me to contact him since he's pretty much the man at this credit union. I'm freaking out by this point - what are the chances?!
We arrived at Eglinton and Raj & I thank the 2 women profusely for their act of kindness. I also saw that Raj did get on a bus to Finch after all that.
So what, you say? So this - there are still good people in this world. These 2 women took a chance and helped out 2 total strangers who were just trying to get from point A to B. If the subway hadn't broken down, I would've never met Raj. Sure enough, there is a job at the credit union in Montreal that Raj could totally hook me up with.
Here's to Providence - it might have just changed my life forever.
