There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along. It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing.

-Richard Brautigan, The Old Bus

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

The All-Weather Transitarian Diet

People don't melt. Hard as it may be for people who live in this semi-arid region to believe, the rain won't hurt you. And if you do get wet, you'll dry soon enough.

As a breakfast component of my Transitarian Diet, I've been walking an extra two blocks to meet the bus rather than just wait outside my house. (The route does a U-shaped turn and I catch it on the return leg.) The alarm goes off at 8:04 and I start walking. I'm waiting for the bus at 8:08, and the bus arrives at 8:11.

Today, with my jacket hood pulled up over my ball cap to shield me from the downpour, I was especially relieved not to be driving on the roadways made slick by the loosened engine oil. It's a danger whose threat is multiplied by the fools who feel they should speed up rather than slow down in the rain.

My bus was right on time. As I boarded, I was momentarily disappointed that I didn't have a dog's ability to shake off water. But then I figured the other passengers most likely preferred my quiet dripping to an active spray. For transitarians, after all, the greater good of the community weighs heavily on our every choice.

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