My worse experience on public transport

Have you ever withness one of those days where the universe just decides to mess with you? Like it picked your name out of a hat for "worst luck"? That was me one brutal summer afternoon, stuck on a city bus that turned into my own personal nightmare.

It started hot. I mean, really hot. The kind where the pavement shimmers and the air feels like soup. I had a big meeting across town, gave myself what I thought was plenty of time, and hopped on a bus. Big mistake.

The bus pulled up, already packed. I mean, sardines in a tin packed. But I needed to get there, so I squeezed on. Wham! The heat hit me like a wall. The air conditioning? Broken. Obviously. Just a couple of sad little fans humming uselessly, stirring the thick, sticky air. The smell? Oh man. A mix of old sweat, someone’s strong perfume, and something weirdly like burnt plastic. Not pleasant.

We crawled. Stop. Start. Stop. Every jerk threw us all together. My shirt was plastered to my back. I could feel the breath of the person crammed behind me on my neck. The guy next to me? His elbow was practically fused to my ribs. No room to breathe.

Then, halfway there BANG! A huge noise came from under the bus. It shuddered violently, lurched forward one last time, and then silence. We rolled to a dead stop. Right in the middle of a busy crossroads. The driver killed the engine. His voice crackled over the speaker: "Uh, folks... bit of a problem here. Engine trouble. Hang tight."

"Hang tight" turned into five minutes. Then ten. Inside, it felt like an oven. Seriously, it was unbearable. People started fanning themselves frantically with whatever they had hands on, papers, folders. A baby started wailing, a hot, miserable cry that just made everything feel worse. My phone battery flashed red. Panic started bubbling up. I was going to be late. Very, very late.

Twenty minutes Still stuck, Traffic behind us was backed up for blocks, horns blaring like an angry orchestra. The driver tried again: "Okay, gonna try restarting." He turned the key. The engine coughed, spluttered, made a horrible grinding sound and died. Dead silence. A groan went through the bus. Someone near the front swore loudly. I couldn't blame them.

Forty five minutes. That's how long we baked Forty five minutes trapped in a hot metal box, going absolutely nowhere. People got snappy. My nice meeting shirt was soaked. My hair was a frizzy disaster, My phone died i felt completely helpless stuck Just utterly stuck.

Finally, another bus pulled up behind us. It was full too, but somehow, like sardines being repacked, they squeezed us all in. This bus had AC weak, but it was something. Relief was short lived though because we were now stuck in the massive traffic jam our broken bus had caused it took another agonizing hour to crawl the rest of the way.

When I finally stumbled off, I was an hour and a half late for my meeting. Sweaty, stressed, smelling like desperation and that weird burnt plastic, I felt utterly defeated. My dead phone meant I couldn’t even call to explain. I just walked into the office building looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. They were nice about it, surprisingly, but I felt humiliated. Exhausted.

That ride? It wasn't just being late. It was the feeling of being trapped. Helpless. At the mercy of a broken machine and rotten luck. It was the heat pressing down, the awful smells, the noise, the crushing frustration of watching precious minutes vanish while you can't move an inch. It was public transport at its absolute worst a disaster where all you can do is sweat and pray for it to end. I’ll walk miles in the rain before I risk feeling that trapped, hot, hopeless feeling on a bus like that ever again.