Riding the bus

I'm on my second 31 day bus pass.  I found that I HAD to buy the bus pass because I have a really hard time buying something and not getting the full value out of what I buy.  It was easy to drive my car to work when my first pass ran out.  Really easy.  Too easy.  So when I didn't have the cash for the bus and the new coffee shop at the metro center sold either 5 day or 31 day passes but not one day passes, well, I am back to the bus.

I missed the 7:45am bus on Monday by two minutes.  I was tempted, oh so tempted, to drive.  But then I thought of the money I had already spent and I waited for the 8:10am bus.  I also missed the afternoon bus by 5 minutes and had to wait 20 minutes for the afternoon bus.  Not my day.

Today I caught the 7:45am bus on time and it was almost full.  I sat down in an empty seat next to a guy who takes after most guys on the bus and was sprawled out across the seat.  The guy in front of me had his seat leaned all the way back, which meant my knees were right up against the seat.  Near the front of the bus was a lady who was clearly anxious about riding the bus.  Another lady had a Costco size box of Sun Chips, a bag and a huge duffel bag.  I sat back and waited for the adventure to begin.

At the final stop before heading over the big hill a lady got on board with her bags, which she left sitting in the middle of the aisle while she finished putting her make-up on.  The guy in front of me kept falling asleep, making his head loll back and forth.  I decided, as I sat there with me knees jammed into his seat because he had to LIE DOWN on the bus, that I wasn't going to feel bad about jamming my knees into his seat...that was a hard step.  The guy next to me fell asleep as well.  The sprawling got worse.  Every time the bus took a corner to the right he would shift closer and closer to me. I was readying my elbow to just jab him a little and wake him up.  The nervous lady at the front of the bus kept leaning forward and then back, forward and then back.  Finally we made it to the major station where 3/4 of the bus emptied out.  I moved up towards the front to let the guy next to me out and have more leg room.  That's when I noticed that nervous lady wasn't wearing any shoes.  There weren't any in her hands either.  She stood up for the next three stops, even though there were plenty of seats and she kept anxiously looking out the window for her stop.  Her stop happened to be my stop.  The bus doors opened and she was out and running, full on running down the street...barefoot.  I walked in the other direction and noticed that everyone I passed was looking beyond me, watching the barefoot nervous lady run down the street.  I don't know.

This afternoon, I arrived at the bus stop a minute before the bus arrived.  It was empty.  I found a place with plenty of leg room and settled back and enjoyed the ride.  The nervous lady wasn't there.  The lady with the make-up was...she kept her bags to herself this time.

Just another day riding the bus.