Good evening everyone, please prepare yourself for a mega rant here. They don’t call me G-rant for nothing (ok, no one calls me that). All nonexistent nicknames aside, let’s talk about airport shuttles (or are they called hotel shuttles?). Like the title says, airport shuttles are the bane of my existence. But what does “bane” even mean? According to the always reliable, never duplicatable Vocabulary.com, bane means:
The noun bane refers to anything that is a cause of harm, ruin, or death. But we often use it for things that aren’t that bad, just feel like it. You might say mosquitoes are the bane of your existence.
The source of this word is Middle and Old English bana, meaning “destroyer, murderer.” The now obsolete meaning of “deadly poison” is seen in the names of poisonous plants such as wolfsbane and henbane. Although “bane of my existence” is a commonly heard phrase, there’s something deliciously archaic about the word bane. It conjures up villages preyed upon by dragons, or witches adding one bane or another to a steaming kettle.
If an airport shuttle ran over you (like the holiday classic, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”), you could literally say “airport shuttles are the bane of my existence” because the airport shuttle caused bodily “harm”, “ruin”-ed your day, and was your cause of “death.” Normally, that is not the case with airport shuttles. And before I get too deep into my rant, let me clarify that I don’t have a problem with all airport shuttles, just the specific airport shuttle I am waiting for. For whatever reason, my airport shuttle is the only airport shuttle that takes the longest time to arrive, or forgets where the airport is located, or some other lame excuse. I’m not sure why my airport shuttle can’t be like all the other airport shuttles I see – arriving at the airport on time, with plenty of open seats, and with a safety-minded shuttle driver behind the wheel.
Airport shuttle = bane of my existence. Image source: http://www.airportshuttleneworleans.com/airport-locations.html
