Un-Break My Heart

An Open (Formally Love) Letter to the MIO

Dearest MIO,

On this weekend of Amor y Amistad I had full intentions of writing you a love letter.  You would be my Colombian Valentine.  I had composed this thought months ago.  I love your efficiency, your cashless cards, your recharge booths, your air conditioning, your cleanliness, your two stops located oh so near to my house in either direction blah blah blah...no more.

I revoke my intent to make you my Valentine.  For the record, we are no longer "in like;" we're irritated and fighting.  ("In love" you ask?  Ha! Amigo, don't even get me started!)

How did this happen?  Well, maybe you can tell me.  How about when you decided that everyone loved you so much that you could stop being considerate of all the commuters that depend on your services on a daily basis.  I appreciate the fact that you are constantly evolving, adding new routes and adjusting old ones to better accommodate your passengers' needs.  In the past, however, you used to care.  You used to announce changes.  You used to change your signs and maps.  You used to update your website for crying out loud!  (Your website used to care too.  You both should be ashamed.)

Let me take you back a few days to last weekend.  I entered the Buitrera station and waited for 20 minutes for the P14 bus to take me home.  After a super-human amount of patience I asked one of your guards if the P14 was running that evening.  He seemed [very] surprised that I was unaware that the P14 "doesn't exist" anymore.  Dearest MIO, he acted as though I were asking of the whereabouts of the lost city of Atlantis, not a bus route that had been unceremoniously dumped a mere six days prior.

No, you didn't even have the courtesy to take down the little oval signs indicating which doors the bus will pull up to or post a note on the maps adorning your walls, indicating a changed route.  Some of us - I'm aware you have other lovers - might only use a particular route once a week.  Granted, your guard did inform me that they made an announcement of some sort - yelling perhaps? - on the Monday the change was made.  Thankful are those riders who were fortunate enough to have been standing within earshot that morning in the station, I'm sure.

Yes, I can take the newly created P74A and get dropped at the same spot.  But, MIO, I would rather not have to take two buses, the later of which I have to leave the Capri station to get on, for a relatively short ride home.  At least the P10A is still in existence; unless you decide to break my heart twice in such a short period of time.

I should tell you this also, MIO.  Just yesterday I was waiting in the Universidades station, the terminus of your Troncale and most southern routes.  Looks like your signage is still misleading us; seems I could wait infinitely for the P14 from here too.  Map?  Check.  Overhead sign?  Check.  Oh, what is this?  A bus labeled P14A has just pulled up?  I wish I could consult a map and find out where this goes.  I hope no one gets on and ends up in some forlorn part of town.  I decide in this moment to check the website when I get home to find out where this deceivingly similarly named bus will whisk these people off to.

Dearest MIO, update your damn website!  Don't lie to me either.  Look at this screen shot from today, Saturday, September 17th - supposedly a day we would share our love and friendship with each other.  Seems you're living in the past MIO.  Get over yourself.  I am.  Maybe I'll just go ahead and figure out the messed up world of your dirty cousins: the Recreativos, the Ermitas, or the Blanco y Negros.  Think about how you'd like to see me staring back at you from their filmy windows, huh?

Think about it, MIO.  Think about that.

Sincerely,
Sergio