New Stroller

I am so accustomed to seeing young aboriginal families board the bus with a kid in a stroller that when I see this particular family as the bus approaches the stop at which they're waiting, I fully expect to see them lift it onto the bus and take the traditional seat up front where there's room for a stroller.

But they don't. They hardly seem to notice the bus is there as the other people around them board.

The wife and young daughter, perhaps 3 years old, are standing, watching, as dad sits on the bench with a large unfolded sheet of paper in his lap. It's then I realize that he is assembling a new stroller; I see the opened box propped up against the bench, and the partially assembled unit laying on the ground. The rest of the bench is strewn with various little parts; his task is to discern how they fit onto the unit itself.

Mom and kid don't know how to help him, and he's clearly in over his head. I'm familiar with the sensation: assembling a complex device using instructions written, translated, and illustrated by a one-eyed old man in China. I silently wish him luck as the bus pulls away.

There goes their stop.