Should

               It can be entertaining and even occasionally instructive to observe the folks with whom I share bus rides morning and afternoon each work day. You really get the complete cross-section of society since bus riders are mostly self-selecting and they each use their own criteria for choosing transportation modes.

               Some folks don’t have company-provided parking near their places of employment. That’s me. Or they simply dislike driving in city / commuter traffic. Also me. Some can’t afford private transportation or can’t drive for a whole variety of reasons. And some simply prefer the bus.

               So, you get this whole panoply of personalities, economic strata, histories and futures. And as I said, it can be fun to watch.

               What’s even more amusing is watching the watchers. The way people react to the people around them is a sociology lesson in real time.

               There are the private ones who want only to be left alone to the book of the week and do everything they can to discourage human engagement. And on the other hand, there are the ones who can’t wait to strike up a conversation about just about anything.

               There’s the ‘crazy guy’ who always cuts the line but no one objects because it won’t stop him, the drivers don’t care and he goes off on anyone he sees as usurping his right to be first. We all just try not to be the one sitting next to him when he starts railing against the world. You can tell the bus-riding newbies because they appear so delighted at finding an open seat on a standing-room-only coach. Nobody makes that mistake twice. He watches for someone to run afoul of his world view and then launches an attack that is quite alarming until you’ve seen his schtick a few times and come to realize he is literally all bark.

               There are the guys who stare at girls and the girls who try not to be caught staring at guys. Leerers come in both genders, although the approach is different.

               Folks become ‘bus buddies’ over time, learning each other’s routes and enough about their jobs and families to provide a sort of community of the 554 / 8:10. I have bus buddies and we all watch each other for the opportunity to engage and then to disengage after a moment’s easy conversation (pulling out the book or unravelling the ear buds being the primary coded signals we use).

               Among the watchers the most interesting to me are the ones I like to think of as the Normative Police. These are the folks whose idea of how the world works and our places in it are so secure that they feel comfortable assuming the judicial role within the public transit microcosm.

               On the old 210, there was a woman among the regulars whose judgment regarding each person boarding ‘her’ bus was so clearly etched on her face that folks who didn’t measure up sometimes found it insulting. In the time it took for a rider to enter the bus, scan their pass and walk the few paces required to pass her inspection station, she could size up, adjudicate and consign to the nether regions anyone who failed to measure up to her standards. One of my bus buddies took to calling her Big Nurse behind her back. She caught Marsha once but only looked confused. I don’t think she’s read much Ken Kesey.

               On the 212, there is a guy who reminds me of the character Pigpen in the Charley Brown cartoons. Only instead of dust, this guy moves through the world in a cloud of ‘should.’ If bus riders actually had thought balloons over their heads, his would be infilled with a dark gray. Pretty much no one measures up, if his jutting lower lip and furrowed brow are any indication. I don’t believe in all the times I’ve shared a ride with him (three years on this route, times maybe twice each week – you do the math) I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him smile or heard him utter a pleasant greeting or comment. If not for the fact that he tends to make business calls loudly and at length, I might have assumed he was mute. But his facial expressions tell the tale.

               I love riding the bus for the community it provides. For a writer, it’s a motorized collection of writing prompts.