George, Mary and I were supposed to go to a rehearsal last night at 19:00, so I suggested that we meet at a bike shop near our house beforehand. The plan was for her to load the bike onto the bus, get her bike fixed up at the shop, and we'd pick her up there before rehearsal.
Mary saw a bus come 15 minutes early at 17:30. The next bus came 15 minutes later with a full bike rack. She and I were just deciding it might be best for George and me to get her from the bus stop and take care of the bike later, when a bus with a bike rack came. She got on. It was 18:00.
George dropped me off at the bike shop 20 minutes later and went to pick up some sandwiches for all of us. When I couldn't find her, I figured she'd be there in a few minutes. I texted to see how close she was, and found out she was on the wrong route. I tried to explain this to her but never heard back. Her phone had died.
George came back with dinner for three, and I explained the situation. We stayed at the bike shop until they started closing up. It was just about 19:00. We called into rehearsal to cancel the sitter. I thought it would be a good idea for me to stay at the bike shop while George searched for Mary, but he didn't want to leave me alone. We all got in the car. It must have been a few minutes later that she showed up at the closed bike shop with an empty stomach, broken bike and dead cell phone.
George and I called Capital Metro to be put through their phone tree. The operator "Could not help us." We drove down the route we believed her to be on, searching frantically for Mary. After another half hour, we returned to the vacant bike shop. She had recently begun the lengthy process of carrying her broken bike home on several busses. George and I did a second sweep of the wrong bus route. It was 20:00 and Drakeson was hungry. We went home very worried. She finally made it back at 20:30, after three hours of lugging around a broken bike.
None of us sang any Brahms.
