Today's bus ride home is a crowded one. All the seats are full when I board, and so I'm standing for most of the trip. I've got people standing behind me and before me, so there's not a lot of choice as to where I perch to begin my survey.
Still, from my inadequate position, I espy a 50ish woman, petite in stature but not in frame. She's wearing a long black sweater with random white patterns on it (if it's random, can it really be a pattern?). When the bus is in motion, her short blonde hair dances with the wind passing through. She clutches her leather purse tightly on her lap.
She's seated in the middle chair of the the front three sideways seats, and looks a mite uncomfortable due to the two imposing fellas flanking her. Sitting sideways is always a mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages. You have a better view of what's going on around you, and significantly more leg room. But you can be surrounded on all sides, and if you're prone to motion sickness, sitting sideways amplifies the motions of the bus in a direction to which your body is not accustomed. I try to avoid the sideways seats whenever I can.
She eventually appears to nod off, head bobbing slightly as the bus traverses the rough terrain of Winnipeg's streets. Several minutes pass like this.
Then a woman in an aisle seat in the first row of forward-facing benches gets up to disembark, and suddenly my subject springs out of her seat with all the pent-up energy of a crouching lioness. She pivots and lands in the better seat gracefully, before any of the numerous passengers standing around her can claim it for themselves.
It never ceases to amaze me how fierce, how competitive, how very primal it can be to land a good seat for yourself on the bus. There is, naturally, a formal bus etiquette that demands that young, able-bodied people surrender their seats to the elderly, the disabled, or those with small children. We're the inverse of the animal kingdom in that regard, for we maintain our sense of human dignity, and even magnify it, when dealing with those individuals who, in a herd of zebras, would be the natural meal for the Great Cats. But when the Great Cats fight amongst themselves over the carrion, or two healthy zebra stallions compete for the affection of the harem of mares, they are displaying the same instinct that myself and my fellow young, able-bodied bus travelers do when eyeing and springing for a prime seat.
In this case, the 50ish woman got the drop on about five other people.
There's my stop.
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Everywhere you look, there is a story. This blog was an experiment in storytelling, drawn from true life in the most mundane setting known to Western civilization: the city bus. I no longer post here, but am leaving it active for posterity's sake.
1 comment:
Fantastic!!! Great idea, I hope you keep this up. I miss the bus and the endless stories, also the introspection at the beginning of my day and later as I transition into my "free" time.
Additional Bus Tips:
Although you fear the side seats, you can look at anyone on the bus without looking awkward. You can obviously look straight ahead, in the direction of travel, where you've just come from, all plausible and without too much effort.
Another fun activity can be to picture everyone in a bygone era and fit them in their role. For example, try to imagine what everyone would do for a living if they were in a western.
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