I promise that I will get back to my movie reviews very soon, as soon as I watch some more. Having said that, I decided that since I have my own website, it shouldn’t just be about movies even though this was the purpose of me having it. I figure that this should be my own space within the internet where I can write about things that happen in my life, both good and bad. As I do not currently have a movie to review, I’m going to write about my morning that I had, (hence the title.)

For many years now, I’ve had issues with Para Transpo, for one reason or another. These issues ranged from them being late tome having to spend most of my adult life on hold with them for something as simple as asking for a ride somewhere. I started using the service in my teenage years when I was tasked with being on co-op as part of my afternoon schedule where each day, I would have to deal with the bus being late and the countless hours I had to spend on hold with them just to track the vehicle on days that it was late. At that time, I was not using Para that much outside of going to co-op and as far as I was concerned, dealing with the late bus almost every single day seemed to be the only aspect of the service I couldn’t stand, the only reason why taking them bothered me so much. Well fast forward 15 to 16 years later and I’m a man in my mid 30’s. The issue with para being late still exists but there are numerous other reasons that I have come to hate them. These other issues combined with the fact that they are always late has made me not want to take them anymore as I have spent most of my adult life complaining about them even to people who don’t have the power to change the way they operate. In each of those conversations, one thing that remains the same is me saying at least once that I’m sick of them and I will not take them anymore, opting to be a homebody in the process as mom keeps telling me she can’t always pick me up and that i would need to cab to certain places if I chose to no longer use them which would in turn cost me almost all the money I have. With this in mind, I always seem to go back on my word as the desire to go out always seems to over shadow my utter annoyance for the service. There is also usually certain places i need to go throughout the month, (Dr appointments, family gatherings,) ETC for which I’m required to use the service as mom opts to not pick me up for those engagements. I’m going to say this again…..while the main reason for me not wanting to take the service and threatening not to numerous times in my adult life has been because they were late, there has been countless other reasons for my dislike of the service such as:

1. Rude para drivers
2. Number of stops needing to be made before getting me to my stop in some cases
3. Being sent multiple vehicles for Chris and I despite us going to the same destination, (which makes more sense now as we live in different areas of the city, however, at one point it used to frustrate me when we lived in the same building,)
4. Not understanding why they send multiple vehicles for the same area of the city.

Note: Number four occurred with me recently when my bus was already almost an hour late to that point and another driver showed up heading to the west end and passing by my area en route to getting there. When the driver refused to take me despite the facts, I called the office where an argument ensued as I asked her how it is determined what bus passengers are put on and that it didn’t make sense for me to have to wait extra time for a vehicle when there was just one present that could have made the trip as he was heading in my direction. She simply told me that it wasn’t my vehicle and that mine was 5 mins away, to which I angrily replied:

“Well, you better hurry up because I want to see my unborn nephew before he becomes an old man in a rocking chair. At this rate, I’ll still be waiting for this ride.”

Jacob has since been born.

The dispatcher did not approve of my sarcasm and angrily ended the call.

One person in my life who acknowledges that the service is stressful is mom. Despite me constantly begging her to take action against them, or to at least see things from my perspective where she usually finds one or more excuses to defend their stupidity despite the situation in question angering me. She will tell me that I just need to be patient, that I’m getting a ride, while comparing my situation to hers in most cases. Almost all issues brought forth to mom regarding issues with the service has lead to her yelling at me at least once and getting mad at me where there would be no problem between us otherwise. The conversations usually follow the same format with me first addressing the issue, “Mom I hate para…..(will then bring forth the issue,) with the possible resolution on my end being that I will not take them anymore. I will then ask her if she finally understands what the problem is. If she replies no, I will then ask what it will take for her to finally understand my problems with them especially since it has become clear to me that a problem is present. Unfortunately, this usually sets up the argument with mom having told me that I have no choice in the matter and me reacting angrily to the response, usually by means of yelling back at her, having lost my temper in the process which leads to the inevitable period of anger from mom. I will then feel remorse for what had happened and occasionally text or call her to apologize for my part in the situation.

A similar issue took place this morning. However, it ended better than it usually does as I was able to maintain my composure throughout. It started two days ago when I paid for my bus pass for the month of May. As it failed to show on my account right away, I phoned the Para office numerous times and spoke to different people who told me the same thing…..”it takes a few days to be added to the account.” Yesterday, this really tested my patience when I looked in my account to once again see that it had not yet processed. As I was now worried that i may have to pay out of pocket for the bus, I repeated the payment again.

When I woke up this morning and was in the process of booking my trips for tomorrow as usual, I was annoyed to notice that the system still had not updated and repeated the same process of calling para and explaining the situation thoroughly to the dispatcher who said the office has no record of my payment. As I was now getting frusterated as well as being annoyed, I did the payment once again with the dispatcher on the line, thus I had done the payment three times over and incurred a credit card payment of over $150.00 as a result. When I asked what would happen if the pass wasn’t purchased, he told me I would need to carry change on me. As this upset me even more, I listened to his advice and called them back 15 minutes later to see if it has updated. Through about 20 mins of that damn hold music, I finally got frusterated and called mom to simply say that I was never using the bus again….hence repeating pretty much the same argument as detailed earlier with the only difference being that my composure was maintained throughout the conversation where it usually would not be. This time, it was mom who got steamed and yelled at me to call them after she noticed the $150.00 charge on my credit card statement, (as she gets a confirmation email each time a payment is processed as I use her email to access my para account.) When there was no option to merge the calls, mom said I would have to stay on the phone with them and get back to her with the results. Annoying as that was, I did it and incurred two more bouts of that god awful music before a dispatcher named Carol explained to me that I wasn’t the only customer having issues with their pass not being processed, citing a delay in the online processing of the pass. She told me to keep the receipt I had in case but reassured me that I would not be denied service by drivers as a result. A text was then sent to mom explaining what had happened.

You know, it just occurred to me that it would take most of Jacob’s natural born life and probably the rest of mine if I was to tell him all the issues I had with Para Transpo over the years. While it’s not possible to do that, I can say this. Up until his birth, each issue with para has caused me to lose my cool. However, times are different now and he doesn’t know it obviously but he got me through the otherwise bad situation as i made a promise to him that I would never lose my cool now that I’m an uncle and I intend to keep that promise.

While things between mom and I got heated this morning, rather than me getting angry and wondering….”is mom still mad at me?” I believe this this could be a good life lesson for Jacob. I’m starting a new section on my website called “The Jacob section” where each day, I will write him a personal message with a good life lesson on basic topics based on my own experiences with them. I really feel like I could teach him something. This would give me the opportunity to continue to fulfill what I believe is my obligation to him in being a good uncle.

Movie reviews will still come as they are watched.

I’m going to start this new section right now and the first topic will be patience.

Good morning buddy. It’s your uncle Jeff and today I want to talk to you about patience.

What is patience?

Patience is the ability to wait for something to happen or maybe someone to show up without getting angry or frusterated if it takes a long time.

One of uncle Jeff’s biggest problems is his inability to be patient with certain things throughout his life before you were born. When you grow up, you can ask your daddy or your grandma and they will tell you the same thing…..uncle Jeff does not have patience. The problem is that if you don’t have patience in life, sometimes you will get angry when something doesn’t go your way, or maybe someone doesn’t understand something you are trying to tell them. This may mean it may longer for something to happen that’s supposed to happen. This has happened to uncle Jeff many times before you were born and each time it happened, he got angry and upset. He always went to grandma and sometimes even to daddy for them to try and help him. However, uncle Jeff made the mistake of allowing his lack of patience to make him angry and you know what happened? Daddy and grandma got upset with uncle Jeff and some things were said that we didn’t mean and uncle Jeff thought for a while that grandma didn’t love him. Uncle Jeff did not mean to harm grandma and daddy as he loves grandma and daddy and would not want to harm them. Uncle Jeff was just upset. Grandma and daddy knew that uncle Jeff still loved them but they told uncle Jeff that they were still upset at him for not being patient and waiting for things to happen rather than getting frusterated.

It is very important that as you grow up, you always have patience because this will make people in your life such as your daddy and your grandma and even your mommy happy to help you and will be there to help you….but they can’t help you if you aren’t patient. Throughout your life, you will encounter at least one person in your life that you don’t like or who doesn’t like you, either because you said something mean or maybe they said something mean to you. Sometimes it may seem like things are too much to handle and you may feel like getting angry as well. If you get angry, it will make mommy and daddy and grandma and maybe even uncle Jeff himself angry too and nothing will get resolved. No one will be happy as long as you are not happy. Just remember that no one likes being angry. Uncle Jeff thinks it’s much better for you to be happy instead of sad and angry. To make that happen, you need to have patience.

I promise you that if you have patience, you will live a very good life and have a lot of good friends as you grow up and don’t worry….uncle Jeff, grandma, mommy and daddy will be happy as long as you’re happy.

We love you very much Jacob…..i promise we will meet soon

Your uncle Jeff