I took a ride on the #17, in... the Twilight Zone...

It was as cold this morning as it was yesterday. A nippy 38 degrees, but the fog was missing, which to me implies that the day will be somewhat warmer in the afternooon. I got to my bus stop about 3 minutes earlier than I normally would. The bus was about 2 minutes early. As usual, I had my bus fare out in my hand, ready to feed the fare taker. In my normal routine, I boarded while saying, "Good morning!" But when I looked up, it wasn't my regular bus driver, an older white guy by the name of Ken. It was young, clean shaven black guy. I'm thinking, "Hey! Where's Ken? He NEVER misses a day!" Just yesterday he was fine and then he's not there... totally threw me off. I looked around the bus, and I didn't recognize a single passenger except for the older Asian fellow sitting next to me who I usually see on the evening bus when I go home from work. All the usual people who take the same bus as me weren't there! So I'm sitting there, feeling like I'm on the wrong #17 bus, trying to work my little tired and half-asleep brain, wondering if I caught an "early" bus that was running late, but then again, that was the same scheduled bus I would've taken on a normal day anyway... but should it matter?

So we move on. Once over the Ross Island bridge, there is a turn that the bus makes on its route, that is a right turn on SW 1st Ave. I'm dozing in out of consciousness when all of a sudden I heard a lady passenger yell out, "Hey! Where you going?" The driver, who I now realized had a slight resemblance to Ralph Tresvant from New Edition, said, "Aww man! I thought I was on the 9 for a minute there! Aww man...." He couldn't stop smiling at himself out of embarassment. He started to get busy pushing buttons on his litter transmitter to enter certain types of info that headquarters receives on their end since it will effect the route. He made up for his lost time quickly and turned on a street that cut the route by only stops. Not once did the bus have a person left standing without a seat. It was that empty. About 6 stops before mine, I saw one more recognizable person get on, but even then, that person looked "odd" in their own way. I got to work about 5 minutes earlier than expected. I don't know how, but I did. It was, after all, a ride in... the Twilight Zone.