After class today, I took the bus home.
I was the only one waiting for the bus until it pulled up, when some squirrelly undergrad boys clammered around. Since I was at the front on the line, I let the doors open, counted about 3 seconds in my head while waiting to see if anyone was going to get off, and I climbed the steps. I put my change in the slot and the driver gave me a dirty look and said, “You’ll have to back out so that these people can get off.” Hmmm, so what were these people doing while I was waiting for them to exit the bus? Thumb-in-butt, I suppose.
So now I’m the bad guy for not letting people off. I back out, pushing to college dudes out as well. Two people meander down, and I climb back up. Since I’ve already paid, I just walk right past the driver. He grunts as if he’s going to stop me, but I keep walking.
The bus is crowded, of course. I walk as far back as I can. I only have to wait a stop or two before a seat frees up and I sit down. After a little while, the fellow on the inside seat next to me pulls the cord and said, “Excuse me.” I asked him, “Are you going to the front exit or back?” He looks stunned a second, and then said, “The back.” I get up and step forward so that I’m not obstructing his path to the back door. He climbed out and said, “Thank you.” As the door opened for him to exit, he turned to me and said, “You are going to go far in life.”
I like that. This story would have a happy ending in my brain, except the driver grunted snidely at me when I said “Thank you” as I exited the bus. So instead, it has a moral- for every polite person, there’s a busload of pricks.
Well put. 🙂