The coffee stand stranger who timed my whole commute

I used to hit the same coffee cart every morning at the 7th and Union stop in Seattle. One regular, older guy in a painters cap, kept telling me I was leaving 40 seconds too late to catch the 8:12 bus. I brushed him off for 2 weeks, then one day I timed it. He was right. He'd been watching the light cycles and the bus schedule for years, knew the exact second the driver would pull out. I started leaving 40 seconds earlier and never missed that bus since. Has anyone else had a stranger reverse-engineer their daily routine like that?

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1 Comment

nancy8171mo ago

My husband says I have zero sense of time, so one stranger timing my walk to the mailbox would probably be a lifesaver. I once missed a flight because I trusted my gut over the clock, and that gut cost me 200 bucks. So yeah, I'd happily let a random barista run my whole schedule, beats my phone alarm.