Last night on the bus, a man and woman stood talking to the driver from the Wall Street stop to the East Village. It was clear that the driver and the man knew each other in the way that the man draped himself across the payment box casually and laughed and laughed at everything the bus driver said, but it seemed the woman in the leopard-print coat had been sitting in the seat behind the driver, gotten jealous of the fun they were having, and jumped up to join in. They weren't bothering me at all, but then I'm a really forgiving, really self-sacrificing, really charitable person. Also a humble one.
But out of nowhere came a creaky old-lady voice:
"Excuse me! Don't talk to the driver while the bus is in motion, and get behind the white line. It's the law! All you're doing is messing around. ALL OUR LIVES ARE AT STAKE."
I realized an elderly woman in mom jeans and a knitted beret was leaning forward in the first row of seats to scold them. At first I thought, "Hey, that's true. I'm sure it's against the law, and that guy probably does need to concentrate."
And then I thought, "But I used to drive with friends next to me all of the time. Back when I had a car, a million years ago."
And then I thought, "But driving a bus in NYC is probably a little more serious than driving a car in Ohio."
But then I remembered, "Oh, wait. He's driving in a straight line up 1st Avenue. In a lane that's specifically for buses. There's literally nothing else in his lane. Except maybe some pedestrians, but who's going to complain if natural selection takes a couple of idiots crossing on red?"
And so I, like the man and woman talking to the bus driver, decided that the old lady went a little far with her outburst. The difference is that I then only mocked her in my head.
– Katie Ett, unapologeticallymundane.com
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