My bus stop

The place where I stand waiting for the bus every weekday morning was designed to be a relatively pleasant and safe little nook. Besides the bus stop sign, it sports a nice concrete pad where one can stand out of the street puddles and away from traffic. And there’s a nice steel cloth bench, coated in that plastic stuff that prevents rust and makes a trouser snag unlikely.

I don’t mind waiting there. Early morning traffic notwithstanding, it’s actually sort of a peaceful place to gather my morning awareness. There are lots of birds testing their lungs and wings. The same elderly lady cane-clomps her way past me and we wish each other good morning after the 241 goes by but before the 210 shows up. The 210 is my ride and if it came earlier, I’d never have struck up this nameless friendship. Of course, one has to wonder what other potential morning friends I miss because they walk by after the 210 moves on with me aboard.

There are several wads of gum stuck to the signpost in one big clump right at eye level so I can’t avoid seeing it as I watch for my coach to crest the first rise below me. It’s annoying to see it every morning but for months of days I’ve forgotten to bring something with me to just scrape it off. And of course, now I’ve grown accustomed to it.

Behind me as I stand waiting and watching is a high hedge and someone’s side yard. Across the street lives the Asian family whose patterns of chauffeuring their son and daughter are timed to the minute. I wish I could grow grass like that. And the sister and brother who pass by on the way to their own bus stop down the street about four minutes before my bus arrives. Sometimes they walk with a third friend, sometimes not. I’ve come to know them and I always watch to see which one is excited to get to school today, which not so much, when they’re quarreling and when they’re sharing confidences. They pull at my heart in a sort of Geisel-esque  oh, the places you’ll go sort of way.

The other night, someone used my bus stop for an unintended purpose, if the torn wrapper and obviously expended condom are to be believed. It had rained pretty much constantly so I have to wonder just how desperate someone was.

They’ve sullied my bus stop. Some folks just have no class at all.