The 257 Horseshoe Bay Express

Sometimes I feel life simply writes itself, and I am just there to transcribe it.

It seems that I have become quite the professional at riding ferries. This weekend I traveled across the Strait to Nanaimo once again to take a temporary leave from my un-fabulous existence in Vancouver. Flying out the door Friday morning to catch the bus to the bus to the ferry, I reached my stop just in time to see the number seventeen pull away. Apparently, BC Transit does not understand a boys need to moisturize, because otherwise I would have not had a problem.

Standing there with my fist shaking in the air, I took a moment to readjust my Club Monaco overnight bag, and then decided I was Forest Gump and started to run. Flying down the hill to West Broadway, it became immediately apparent that I was not dressed for speed. Struggling to secure my feet in this season’s closed-toe-leather sandals by Aldo, I fought not only to stay upright but also not lose my hat.

After chasing the bus five blocks, I threw my hands up in the air, and hopped in the cab that magically appeared in front of me. Together the taxi driver and I drove all the way to West Georgia right behind the bus that I was supposed to be on. Once all was said and done, I signed the Credit Card slip paying him ten times the amount it would have cost me to ride public transit. Then I hopped out just in time to catch the Horseshoe Bay Express.

Securing a seat in the back corner, I took a deep breath, and watched intently as all the other ESL passengers got on. The first set of people to catch my eye was three German men who wore back-packs that weighed twice as much as me. With necks the diameter of tree trunks and biceps the circumference of watermelons, even I, who can handle something as big as Proust, shuddered at the thought of what each man could do to me. Unclipping, unzipping and sliding the packs off their shoulders, I watched as each of them took a seat beside each other, not far from me.

Three seconds later, I noticed three more men get on the bus. Except this threesome was nothing like the one I had just fantasized.

Ears pierced and knees scratched, these boys made me look like I fell off the wrong side of the rainbow.

The first one in line carried a miniature poodle in a kennel that looked like an over-sized lunch box. The second man had a double-sided sleeping bag strapped on to his back. And special about the third one was, well, actually nothing. Each taking a seat directly opposite the Germans, I could not believe the sight that had unfolded before my very eyes.

It appeared that each group of men was setting out to camp for the weekend, but their ideas of ‘roughing it’ could have not been more different. The Eastern Europeans looked as if they were getting set to film the sequel to Alive, while the Western Dandies looked like they had packed a low-budget camera to start eating something else. For two and a half hours, I journeyed with these men and dreamed up every possible tale they could be cast in.

After reaching Departure Bay, I bid them all a silent farewell and thought to myself that I just might meet them again. Except if that was the case it would not be on a bus, but on a stage.