My Fellow Friends on the Bus

Oh how I love the public transit system. Where else would you find such a mix of personalities. A mix that would never be found in another kind of gathering. Anyone that has ridden a bus, train, trolley, ferry or the like will know what I'm talking about.

You do have some generally friendly people that are not over bearing and pleasant to small talk too. People you recognize as "regulars" for the given time slot, heading off to do whatever it is that they do. But I would say 90% of the people fall into the following categories.

You have the loud talkers that seem to think everyone wants to know that "Joey is starting the 5th grade!!" or "Sally is such a lousy boss". Of course 60% of these conversations take place on cell phones.

You have the people that get on the bus with their head phones on and sit silently on the ride and get off the bus in the same way. That would be me most days, kind of anti social, I know. And of course the opposite of that is the people that think you want share in their love of JZ, 50 Cent or Jewl.

There are the the book readers who of course hate anyone that makes a peep because they must be commuting on public transit for "quite time".

You have teenagers, well, being teenagers.

You have the bike riders that load up their bike and proceed to get on the bus with a helmet, over sized back back, bike saddle bags, one of those giant indestructible water bottles and wearing shorts in bellow 40 degree weather.

You've got the poor sucker trying to make it to the bus stop or train station with 3 suit cases and some times 3 kids and only one open seat. Since they are neither handicapped or elderly it's a 50/50 on weather the people in the front will get up and let them have the "big spots".

Lastly you have the crazies. The creepy guys that talk to them selves or even worse want to talk to you about the people talking to them, in there head. REALLY Drunk guys (I've seen a guy shot-gun half a bottle of vodka after stepping on the bus and finding a seat). Weird couples that talk about the most vile subject matter or seem like they literally were on the bus to get to auditions for some new Jeff Foxworthy reality show. After they get off the bus we of course instantly start talking about how weird that was and then share stories of other crazies we have each encountered.

I had one of the crazies sit next to me today, a talker. Most of the time I'll pretend I have narcolepsy or just put my headphones on and become one of the "share my music/TV" with others as I turn it up loud enough to drown out the "preaching" of my fellow rider. But today both of those were thwarted. I could not feign narcolepsy because when the heater in the bus came on is sounded like a 747 taking off, so I was fooling no one with that one. It was a no go for headphones either as I realized I did not plug my phone in last night and could not listen to music or watch TV and still hope to make it though the day.

So there I sat, listening and nodding at the stream of conscious being yelled out by this deranged individual, hoping that maybe he would feel better because someone was listening today.

Ah yes, these folks, these are my fellow friends on the bus.