For the record, I never intended to be an instigator.

Earlier this week I finished teaching for the day and headed to the bus stop. I got in the Loudoun Connection line, which serves multiple destinations.

My bus approached the stop, and my fellow Dulles-bound passengers and I stepped to the left and headed for the bus doors, thus leaving the Leesburg passengers in line. Both the Dulles and Leesburg riders maintained their queue order as the lines split and compressed.

Unfortunately, about a dozen of us Dulles passengers stepped out of line only to be turned away from the standing room only bus. I followed the group as it swarmed to the back of the line, which now contained both the Leesburg passengers and several newcomers to the queue.

This made no sense.   Why did we go to the back of the line?

The injustice of the situation started to settle in and I started to get antsy.

Was there some “all or nothing” clause in the bus line rules that dictated this practice? Or were we all misguided lemmings who feared ruffling feathers by standing up for ourselves?

If nothing else, I wanted answers, so I started to ask around. Was this standard practice? What was protocol in this situation? I tried to sound curious, not angry; I simply wanted to know. My neighbors greeted me with looks that ranged from shared confusion to blank stares to fear.

Suddenly, from ahead of us in the line came my answer.

My deus ex machina appeared in the form of “Army Guy.”  Unbidden, Army Guy came up to our group and said “Hey, if you don’t get on the bus, you don’t have to go to the end of the line.”

Army Guy was a nice, uniformed fellow who had helped me before when I’d had a bus rules question, so in my mind he was a resident expert.  Also, he appeared to be carrying a sidearm, so I guessed other people would respect him and he would have my back if this thing came to blows.  His word was good enough for me.

“Hey guys,” I hollered to the swarm, “We don’t need to wait a the end of the line! Let’s go!”

Not much of a Pied Piper, I only got two other people to join me. As I think back now, they were the ones who initially looked scared, so they may have only come out of fear for their personal safety from the crazy yelling lady.  Based on what came next, I feel bad about that.

As my new friends and I headed to the front of the line, the Leesburgers who had been in front of us started to mumble.

My friends and I chatted loudly as we waited, so as to encourage each other and explain ourselves to the line.

“Sure was a long line when we waited the first time!” and “Can’t go to the end of the line after your bus is full like ours was or you’ll spend your evening in line!”

Still, the indignant mumbles were getting louder, and the stares were getting dirtier. Old ladies who looked so sweet just moments ago were now angrily mumbling like Milton griped about his Swingline stapler. “The line starts over there,” they muttered just over their breath. They followed our lead and started talking loudly to themselves so we would overhear.

Tempers were starting to flare. If this had been a musical number, it would have been either an angry ensemble number for the passengers (think Sharks vs. Jets) or a pleading solo for the wronged ingenue (think Fantine in LesMiz or Tracy Trumblad in Hairspray; be easy on her, she’s just misunderstood!)

Either way, it would have ended in a dance-off.

I tried to explain what had happened to a few people, but they looked at me with closed expressions. They saw me walk up to the line, and they weren’t taking my crap. Things were headed south, fast.

Luckily no one had a torch or pitchfork.

Finally another irritated but more communicative woman explained we should be in line behind the original Leesburg line, since some of the buses go to the same destination. If we stood behind the person we were originally behind, we’d be all set.

My two friends and I followed these directions as best we could and got back in line.

The next bus eventually came. It was Dulles only, so we hopped out of line and past the Leesburgers again, but this time we got on the bus, and we got the hell out of there.

I felt bad on the way home. Between Army Guy and me, most of the passengers now thought that my poor “friends” and I were either idiots or a-holes. And it’s not like I was subtle about it. I’m 5′10″ in heels, my red hair looks like a Bozo beacon in the sun, and I had on a shiny bright blue dress.  So much for blending in!

Oh well; the bus line to hell is paved with good intentions.

That night in bed I tried to explain my debacle to my husband. He listened nicely for a few minutes, then admitted that he couldn’t follow anything about my story and told me to get over it; it’s just a bus line.

Good advice, but that night my bus line drama morphed into a nightmare of biblical proportions. I swear to God, as my alarm went off the next morning I was dreaming about fellow bus passenger Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort screaming “Unleash Hell!!!” (a Gladiator reference, but obviously I’m not a cinema purist in my sleep) from a fiery pit at Hogwarts castle.

I decided to take the metro.