The People On The Bus

The people on the bus go up and down. So goes the song we sang to our kids. I never understood it. It’s the people on the elevator that go up and down. People on the bus, they just sit there. Some read, many listen to music, or something, I assume it’s music, I can’t prove it. A healthy minority of passengers yap on their cell phones. But most just sit there. They don’t even open the window.

I take what I call a commuter bus. That’s a bus that runs to an outlying area, has limited service, and on which one sees the same passengers every day.

And what a bunch of interesting people. There’s Lenin. I call him that because he’s a dead ringer for the guy that led the Russian Revolution. Same beard, same eyes. He wears small round metal glasses, reminiscent more of Beatle John, so perhaps I should call him Lennon. From his dress I’d guess that he’s a blue collar worker. The problem, though, is that I haven’t seen Lenin in months. So I worry about old Lenin. I hope he’s ok. Maybe he’s in Zurich.

Now Betty Bigbum, she’s interesting. Blonde, totally a bimbo, not quite up on how best to dress to flatter her rather idiosyncratic figure. Usually she’ll sit and stare straight ahead, but occasionally she will be engrossed in a phone conversation throughout the entire 30 minute ride, and it’s an even bet whether she’ll be talking in English or French, for bimbo though she may be, she sounds equally adept at either language. Perhaps I should call her Bilingual Betty Bigbum.

Bilingual Betty Bigbum the Bimbo.

Then there’s Pineapple Head. Now PH, she’s a young dark–haired woman, maybe early 20s, with an air of jaunty self-confidence like I’ve rarely seen. It takes a certain self-assurance to wear your hair in a pony tail coming straight out of the top of your head, every single day. Somehow, PH seemed to get away with it. Then I didn’t see her for a while, mostly because I changed my schedule. But after a bit, there she was, on the home ride this time, and hey, guess what. No more pony tail. And that’s ok, only I had to take a second look to be sure it was her. Not that I stare or anything. Honest, I’ve developed people watching techniques that’d be the envy of the best PI.

But stare or not, there was good old Pineapple Head sitting next to me the other day, on the same bench with an empty seat between us. And Pineapple Head was in meal mode. She had some kind of take-out, and was eating with relish. Not relish, but relish. You know what I mean. Relish. So me, being the impetuous type, I pulled out a bottle of water from which I had not drank, tapped old Pineapple Head on the shoulder, and offered her the water. She’ll be thirsty, I reasoned. OH no! She said, smiling, I have, she said, in a heavy French accent (“I ‘ave”), pointing to her big white purse. And sure enough, a minute or two later, she pulled out a water bottle identical to the one I’d offered and I looked at her and I said Perfect! And she responded Ya!

And so I ride the bus, and continue to interact with the world in all manner of odd ways, and I may continue to report my adventures, if I don’t get arrested…