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| "I am relevant!" |
I like it when the seat right behind the bus driver is empty because that's where I best like to sit. Not cause it's the coolest, or the warmest, or the best people watchingest, or cause it gets-you-there-the-fastestest, or whatever other superlative you might desire from a bus ride, but because this is where I have sneaky secret access to the bus driver. Because from here, I can very slightly and very casually lean over - as if to stretch out my gluteus sideus, or to simply heave myself a yawn, or to peer out of the windshield as if that might make some kind of a difference - and, in fact, inconspicuously whisper into the unsuspecting ear nearby, "...Does this bus go to...say, Hereford?"
This ear may sometimes contain intriguing piercings, or be lined with that teensy line of ear fuzz that ears can sometimes have, or simply be rocking out to the self-selected tunes that stream through the airwaves that the bus speakers make, or if it is wintertime, perhaps be hiding beneath the furs of a cozy hat. Indeed, this ear closest to my favorite seat on every bus is unique, special, and particular to each individual whose head-side it occupies, but on each bus remains exactly the same in that it is always the closest one to this particular seat.
So I like it when the seat right behind the bus driver is empty because it is the one seat toward which this ear can most reasonably crane, without neck injuries or bus accidents or attention-drawings from the rest of the bus crowd, the great masses not so fortunate to be sitting in this special seat. Because this is the seat, after having received the secret inquiry through that ear, to which the bus driver can most discreetly and conveniently whisper back, "No..." (and if they're nice, also with a "...sorry..." but mostly just with that look of discomfort from my whisper having been a tad too close to his or her ear) as I sigh and pull the little ding-string, and Request dat Stop, and put on my sheepish face (._.) - to get off this very wrong bus, abandon this perfectly wrong seat, so very&conveniently close to the front door of the bus, through which I make my slightly-ashamed, no-longer-a-first-year; have-no-excuse kind of escape and trek out once again into the webby, wide worldful of unmastered bus lines and kind, bus drivery ears, just waiting to be whispered into.
