You know best, dear (Write of Passage Number Forty-nine)

There's an older couple sitting next to me in the bus shelter on Fort Street just up from Douglas Street. They look a bit like tourists - lots of white in their clothing, comfortable shoes.

Nuthin' wrong with that.

They're conferring about something, looking at a bus schedule in the wife's hands, and although I'm not listening in (I swear!), I hear them say 'the 24 bus".

I decide to intervene.
"The 24 doesn't stop here," I tell them, gently and politely, I hope.

The husband gestures westward.
"We saw it pass down there; it has to come up here."

I'm a little taken aback by his logic, but actually get up to check the sign.

Sitting down, I say, "The #24 is not on the lists of buses that stop here." (I knew this, having taken buses in Victoria for years, but he sounds so sure of himself, he's got me doubting myself.)

Wife is checking the timetable she's clutching again.
"It says "Maplewood'," she begins, but husband overrides her.
"We saw it pass by down there," he repeats, pointing, "and it has to come by somewhere."

In this face of this brand of reasoning, I decide I don't have the time or inclination to argue.

"Well, there was a big fire downtown this morning; maybe the bus has been re-routed," I remark, in my placatory Canadian fashion.

My bus, which bears one of the numbers on the bus stop sign, has pulled up, so I board it, with my dark, indignant thoughts.