In a strange twist of fate, Arvid Wojcinksi, a striking VIVA Transit driver, found himself stranded on the streets of Oakville with no money and no identification last Thursday. With his car in for repairs, Wojcinski desperately needed to get to an early morning medical appointment and decided to take the GO Train from Richmond Hill and transfer onto a westbound 407 bus.

Unfortunately, he found that his PRESTO card was locked and would not work because he had forgotten to “swipe off” on a previous GO Bus trip. The striking driver had to wait in a slow-moving line to pay the 10-cent fine that would unlock his card, but unfortunately, the slowness of the line cause him to miss the 7:25 train.

“No worries” he thought ,”I’ve got lots of time”.

He did get on the 7:55 train, but unfortunately, he fell asleep “just for a moment” and missed his stop at Richmond Hill Centre.

Since there are no northbound GO Trains in the morning, Wojcinski had no choice but to continue on to Union Station. His plan “B” was to get on the subway and transfer to a westbound bus at Finch. But luck was clearly not on his side that day — he didn’t notice his wallet had fallen and slid under his seat while he dozed. When the striking driver realized what had happened, he knew his last hope was to hop on the original GO Train and beg them to let him ride back to Richmond Hill.

He found the doors still open but could not find a conductor. And so he got on and once again closed his eyes.

Unfortunately, his eyes were still closed when the train pulled past the CNE grounds and he did not wake up when the train flew westward along the lakefront.  The low October sun sparkled happily over Lake Ontario, while hundreds of gulls wheeled high in a perfect blue sky and they did not give a damn that a striking VIVA driver was sleepily heading to Oakville with not wallet and no identification.

When last seen, Wojcinksi was wearily hitching rides along the QEW. Perhaps you’ll give him a lift if you see him?