gozzterLeave a Comment on I got this, eh?

I got this, eh?

Do you ever think of social interactions as a game? A competition not for prizes or public accolades perhaps, but sometimes more a sense of private triumph over somebody you do not know? There are times it’s like that for me on a bus -especially after a long, cold wait in line as wrong bus after wrong bus empties its passengers leaving cheery, warm seats as it pulls away almost empty. Bus Karma is so often like that, I find, although in sober retrospect, it is more an indication of its destination than of a spiteful bus deity bent on penalizing its occupants for a day spent shopping.

As it happened, the bowels of the #257 Express bus one afternoon were totally full as its windows implied, and almost nobody got off when it stopped. So, many  of us decided to wait for the consolation bus: the #250 which wanders its way slowly and painfully along Marine Drive, stopping at every possible place it was allowed before it clears the town. Then, as if enough is not enough, it heads off on the winding road along the shore through a wilderness of trees and expensive houses trying to hide behind their foliage. Don’t get me wrong, on a nice day it’s a nice trip; on some days, however, I just want to get to the ferry terminal.

Of course the #250 was crowded as well, but not as much as the Express. There were only two conventional seats empty that I could see, and they were both immediately adjacent to the section reserved for seniors, people in wheelchairs or mothers with baby carriages. Those particular seats face the aisle and are individually retractable to free up space for whatever device is being used.

As the first person boarding I captured the ordinary passenger seat by the window, and an elderly, grumpy-faced man with a severe limp scowled his way into the aisle seat beside me; I don’t think he wanted to be seen requiring a place in  the senior’s section. Anyway, I normally try to make conversation with my seatmates, but he clearly had his own agenda and studiously avoided my eyes. Fine, I could live with that; there were others around me on whom I could eavesdrop.

As the bus stopped and started its way along the street the aisles began to fill, and a smiling young woman pushing a baby stroller boarded, forcing those who thought they could get away with sitting in the reserved section to stand and elbow people in front of them further down the aisle: a chain-reaction shove.

The woman who presumably had a quiet baby in the carriage was unable to retract one of the seats to fit the carriage into the space, so, having nothing else to do and, so far at least, nobody to talk to, I leaned forward and maneuvered the seat out of her way.

Her eyes lit up in gratitude and her whole face smiled at me.

The man next to me noticed, and hit me with an opprobrial stare. I wasn’t sure if he resented my helping her, or whether he was upset that he didn’t beat me to it, but I simply smiled and let it go. I didn’t view it as a gauntlet dropped, or anything.

Shortly after the woman with the carriage settled herself, the bus stopped again and the aisle became a hive of shuffling buzzing humanity each seeking a refuge in a place where they could read and text on their phones. A very pregnant woman ended up being stranded beside my neighbour. I could tell he was embarrassed because he couldn’t really offer his seat to her with his own disability and he glanced at me as if hoping I could actually extricate myself from behind the baby carriage which was pinning my legs to the wall of the bus. I shrugged meekly, so he attempted to secure a seat for her by shaming a man sitting behind us with a glare.

When she was safely ensconced in the vacated seat, he glanced at me again, but this time with a slightly raised eyebrow as if we were now even. The competition was on.

Once the bus had moved through the town and its million stops, little by little it began to empty again, but that did not dampen the undeclared contest between the two of us.

The stroller that was pinning my feet to the side wall of the bus was facing away from me and I couldn’t see its contents, but whoever was in it launched a plastic benippled milk bottle over the top and at my lap. The man beside me made a grab for it, but his reflexes obviously weren’t as honed as mine, and I caught the bottle midflight before it did any damage. Once again, I was rewarded with an apology and a broad smile from the woman who was caring for whoever she had hidden in the carriage.

My seat-mate’s brow furrowed at the unfair disability his aging joints had imposed, but I could tell he hadn’t conceded yet.

A credit card slipped out of the pocket of an even more elderly man sitting across the now emptied aisle from us and my neighbour quickly alerted the man to this. Sensing his infirmity my seat-mate reached down in an attempt to pick it up for him. When neither of them succeeded, the pregnant woman in the seat behind shrugged and, one hand still texting on her phone, picked up the card as if it had little handles on it for just such an occasion.

Well come on! Anybody could do that, eh?

But it didn’t stop there; I didn’t think it would. The bus slowly emptied even more as it continued towards the ferry terminal. The stroller disappeared, the pregnant women got off, and the row of seats in the reserved areas on both sides of the aisle were now barren scaffolds. A well-dressed woman got on with a young boy and sat in the empty reserved section close to the front door. She kept checking her watch, probably concerned about catching a ferry, but I doubted she had ever tried to get to the terminal on a bus. In fact, she actually pulled the cord when she heard the automated bus-voice announcing a parking lot where some desperate ferry users occasionally park their cars although it was more than a 15 minute walk to the terminal. As she rose from her seat, she tugged the little boy by his arm telling him they were going to see the ferry now.

My neighbour, with a quick glance at me, corrected her immediately and informed her that he, too, was going to the ferry and would let her know when to get off. I was beginning to like the guy, competitive though he was. Still, I was unwilling to admit defeat; we hadn’t arrived yet, but opportunities to recoup were becoming slim I realized.

Then, just as the bus stopped at the cross street before making its final turn to the terminal, the woman stood up and pulled the child along with her. She seemed rather unsteady on her feet in her high heels, and judging by the jerkiness of the bus, I advised her she might be safer to sit until the bus had pulled into the terminal and fully stopped. I, too, was getting out there, I added with a quick glance at my neighbour. It was perhaps a condescending thing to say, and he stared at me as if it were merely an unnecessary token gesture. Still, I had to do something to try even the score with him, eh?

“Tie?” he said when the bus finally stopped, his eyes twinkling as we both got up to leave the bus as unvanquished adversaries. It was the first time I’d seen him really smile and before he steadied himself on his damaged leg, he proffered his hand and I nodded my head.

You have to be magnanimous when you’re riding a bus…

, ,

Leave a comment

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close