It usually starts with a scarcity of buses. You can’t find a ride on your favourite ride app, so you decide to bus it out, except there are no buses there either. So you begin to walk. Then suddenly, you hear it. The rickety yellow bus coming your way.

You ask it to stop and it does. You enter, paying almost double the normal price. In your head, you’re calling them scammers, but you soon see why. There is a massive holdup. Vehicles are jam packed, bumper to bumper, not moving an inch. You decide to sit it out.

In the meantime, you grab your phone to take a quick snap of the scenery. Rookie mistake.

A group of area boys, disguised as hawkers, spot you and assume you’re trying to take pictures of them. They start hitting the bus, shouting at you through the windows. Boxes of gala and soft drinks are abandoned on the road as they harass you. You can only thank Jehovah that they aren’t inside the bus with you, because if they were…

After the traumatic ordeal, all you want to do is sleep, but you remember you’re inside a bus. People are sitting way too close and they don’t exactly smell great. You’re also wondering, what if they pass my bus stop?

So you thug it out for the next thirty minutes. Suddenly, the road clears. No accident. No breakdown. No reason for the traffic at all.

So what was all that suffering for?

You think about the ordeal for days, until you find yourself in the exact same position six days later.