The Bus Diaries

The bus system in Kingston gives me so many stories to tell. I think that I could write an entire memoir on my bus experiences. It is not easy to plan your life around a bus schedule. If you want to meet your friends in town at exactly 8:30, but your bus only comes at 8:05 and 8:35, you better plan to take the earlier bus and find somewhere to hang around, or take the later bus and be late. This is quite an adjustment for me—someone who is all-too-used to getting in her car at the perfect time to arrive approximately five minutes early, or late, depending on the destination. When I am relying on buses, I am somewhat out of control; there are times when I would like to ask the bus driver to take just a slight detour for my convenience, but then I very quickly remember that I am on public transportation, not a chauffeur service.

I was meeting some friends at the pub last night at 8:30. It's a 20-minute walk from my house that I can gladly make in the daytime, but will not do alone at night. So I planned to take the bus. As I near the turn that will take me to my bus stop, I see my bus turn and head toward the stop. I am far enough away that if I do not run, I will miss the bus (and it will be another 30 minutes before the next one comes). I start running, and praying that there is someone who has already queued the bus, since it is a request stop. If no one is there to get picked up, the bus will not stop. Thankfully, there are several people getting on, but I continue to trot toward the trolley. I jump on quickly with a smile, and a "thank you" to the driver. If I had not run and made that ride, I would have been half an hour late to meet my friends. Thank goodness I ran.

This afternoon, I was waiting for my bus, and a sweet old woman came to the stop dressed in the most awful outfit I have ever seen. I wish I could have taken a picture, but I did not want to be rude. She had a nice smile, which made up for the lack of fashion sense, I suppose. But when we saw our bus, she turned to me and said gently, "Do you mind helping me? I promise I won't make a habit of it, but I fell down today and am quite scared." I happily obliged, and linked arms with her as we walked to the bus. That is the end of the story, but I really enjoyed her assuring me she would not "make a habit of it," as though we met often or would be meeting again at this bus stop. I find the elderly British folk just as precious and precocious as the very young British folk.

Tonight, some friends and I went to see Valentine's Day at the cinema, which was interesting because our seats were assigned, like in a performance theatre, and they show more advertisements and commercials before the movie starts than they do previews. But, the point of this is my bus adventure following the cinema trip. I was waiting at the stop with several of my friends, but eventually all of their buses came and I was still waiting for mine. (Don't worry, parents; it was a brightly lit area with lots of people around). There was a cute old couple who were discussing whether or not their bus would be coming again, and since I knew the answer, I decided to help them out by sharing the information. They decided to continue conversation—which I found pleasant, because most of my similar experiences have been quite different; the conversation ends after the necessary discussion has been had. We first talked about nothing in particular, and then the woman asked if I was studying here from Canada. "The States, actually," I responded, and she said she could never tell the difference in accents. I assured her that I often couldn't either. When they asked me where in the States I was from, I said that I went to school in North Carolina. "Well, you don't have the North Carolina drawl," she answered, so I explained that I had grown up in Florida, near Georgia. This inspired the man to share his trip that he and his wife took to Georgia for a wedding; apparently the Georgian man their niece married was "horrible," because he did not offer him a drink. Then they rambled on about the dry county laws in Georgia, for which I could not speak.

And then, the inevitable question: "What do you think of Obama?" I smiled and, purposefully ambiguous, replied, "It's all very interesting." "Well that's noncommittal," the woman said to her husband. So I said, "What do you think of him?" He launched into his opinion of American politics and policies and did not stop talking until his bus arrived. I was amused. The man hugged me goodbye and kissed me on the cheek. His wife hurried him along, and they stepped onto the 71 toward Chessington.

Once on my bus toward home, I observed a young couple (cannot be more than 16 or so) that I had seen once before. They were holding hands, and the boy kept leaning over and kissing the girl on the cheek every few minutes. And the girl would turn and whisper something into his ear. And he would smile like a fool. 

There are some things that the British don't know how to do, such as make sweet tea. But I think they do love quite well. At least as far as I can tell.

Love,
lvp