So, Saturday morning I again opted to take myself to breakfast simply because work is closer to my favorite breakfast places than my apartment and if I don’t work Saturday night, then I am off until Sunday morning at 10:30 or so. Besides, the bus that goes from work closest to my apartment doesn’t start running until 8am or so and I get off at 6am so if I go straight home I am going to probably have to take two buses and transfer in either Downtown or Squirrel Hill, whereas there is a bus that runs from the Strip District (where I go for breakfast) to Oakland (where my apartment is).
So I opt for Kelly O’s in the morning (they have been on that Guy Fieri show on the food network) and I opt for the Pittsburgh benedict. It is an eggs Benedict but under the eggs and Hollandaise sauce is onion, kielbasa and a pierogi. Of course there was a wait for a seat, being they open at 6am (which is when I get off of work) and being under COVID protocols, restaurants are at 75% seating capacity these days, but it wasn’t along wait and soon enough I was noshing on some really good breakfast food.
I finish my breakfast and head off to the bus stop when I see one of my buses go by (54C for those familiar with Port Authority vernacular) but it runs like every half hour or so and I have a book to read and my phone so 30 minutes isn’t all that bad. So I get to the bus stop and like less than 5 minutes later a plethora of police cars come zooming by with lights flashing. They seem to be stopping a few blocks away, mind you my bus stop is at 21st street and I know the bus I am waiting on comes off of 16th street. So if the police are stopped at 16th street my bus is probably going to be detoured, so I grab ye olde trusty phone to see if there is a detour and if so, where it is. Of course none of the tv news stations have anything on their traffic maps or their web pages about what is happening, I check the Port Authority website about bus detours which is equally useless. I figure my next way to find anything out is to listen to the police scanner, so I hop on the Broadcastify website, and am getting some updates mixed in with first responder speak, which I do not know. Turns out it is a traffic accident, there are 3 victims, to in stable condition, one in critical. Those are details to round out the story but there is no mention of where the accident is in relation to 16th street. I am seeing cars headed into town being detoured it can’t tell from where I am if they are being detoured onto 17th or 16th streets.
So I wait around for a while, probably well past the half hour I should have waited and once all of the ambulances cleared out and the only thing left was police cars directing traffic away from the scene,I decide I might as well walk towards town and take a look. Sure enough the accident was at the intersection with 16th street, god only knows when traffic (including my bus) will resume there and given the web was not offering information about where to catch my bus, I am probably best off walking into town and catching a bus there.
It is around 9am and I start heading in a downtown direction. I leave the headphones on, tuned to the police scanner, more as background noise than to learn anything about my bus’s arrival, which I have given up on.
And I start hearing what is going on in my metropolis, there is a car accident and the end of a bridge (a different accident mind you), there is a domestic disturbance where no weapons are involved, a COVID positive male is having trouble breathing and then lastly, a man has a Lego stuck in his nose. Far be it from me to ascertain when someone has a problem, but when you wake up in the morning and need your Lego fix to deal with the day, you might have a problem. But rather than spend the day contemplating someone’s Lego addiction, I opted to go home and sleep instead.
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