Bus
When I take the bus home from work, there are about six kids on it, all Asian, all with siblings, all with book-bags on their way home from school, all accompanied by a mother or grandpa, all clutching a snack or falling asleep.
Nobody ever talks to anyone they didn't get on the bus with, except the time that girl dropped her credit card after paying her bill by cell phone, and the guy a few rows back was all, "Miss! Excuse me, Miss!" We all just listen to our iPods and check our voicemails and read and sit wearily, zoning out until the bus gets to our stop. There may as well be a sign at the front of the bus that says, "Quiet! People have had a long, hard day."
Yesterday a little girl about three years old was sitting across from me, with her mother on one side and older sister on the other. She reached into her mother's bag to withdraw a baggie filled with sucking candies. Unwrapping one, she popped it in her mouth and happily sucked away, only to have it fall out of her mouth and down her shirt when the bus went over a big bump.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman sitting next to me try to hold back a smile as we watched the mother fish out the candy from inside the little girl's shirt. The girl was blasé about it, and reached into her mother's bag for a second candy to suck on. A good song came on and I looked forward, out the front windshield of the bus, to see how close we were to my stop. I zoned out.
And then out of the corner of my eye I saw the little girl not looking right. She was choking on her candy, eyes wide and scared. Her older sister continued to ignore her. The woman sitting next to me was clearly concerned, and just as I was about to tell the mother her daughter was choking on her candy, the little girl coughed it up and started to cry.
The mother realized what had happened right away, and patted the girl's back as she put her head in her mother's lap. It turned out that everyone nearby had it, and there was a collective sigh of relief.
She is my favorite of all the kids who ride the bus, only second to the little blond boy on the morning bus who likes to inform me when it's raining and I'm not wearing rainboots.
Nobody ever talks to anyone they didn't get on the bus with, except the time that girl dropped her credit card after paying her bill by cell phone, and the guy a few rows back was all, "Miss! Excuse me, Miss!" We all just listen to our iPods and check our voicemails and read and sit wearily, zoning out until the bus gets to our stop. There may as well be a sign at the front of the bus that says, "Quiet! People have had a long, hard day."
Yesterday a little girl about three years old was sitting across from me, with her mother on one side and older sister on the other. She reached into her mother's bag to withdraw a baggie filled with sucking candies. Unwrapping one, she popped it in her mouth and happily sucked away, only to have it fall out of her mouth and down her shirt when the bus went over a big bump.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman sitting next to me try to hold back a smile as we watched the mother fish out the candy from inside the little girl's shirt. The girl was blasé about it, and reached into her mother's bag for a second candy to suck on. A good song came on and I looked forward, out the front windshield of the bus, to see how close we were to my stop. I zoned out.
And then out of the corner of my eye I saw the little girl not looking right. She was choking on her candy, eyes wide and scared. Her older sister continued to ignore her. The woman sitting next to me was clearly concerned, and just as I was about to tell the mother her daughter was choking on her candy, the little girl coughed it up and started to cry.
The mother realized what had happened right away, and patted the girl's back as she put her head in her mother's lap. It turned out that everyone nearby had it, and there was a collective sigh of relief.
She is my favorite of all the kids who ride the bus, only second to the little blond boy on the morning bus who likes to inform me when it's raining and I'm not wearing rainboots.
Labels: Commute
posted by Green at 1/19/2008 05:43:00 AM
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