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

Monday, January 7, 2008

What will 2008 bring?

Normally, I don't take vacations at the end of the year. Leaving work one year and returning the next is quite unsettling. But most unsettling today was the hug the guy who chases co-eds gave to a very attractive woman rider.

With Sacramento State still on winter recess, the crowd on my regular No. 82 bus on my first day back at work was fairly thin. I was figuring that the guy who chases co-eds would be left by himself. But instead he and a woman boarded at the Watt and Wal-Mart stop and sat together. When they had to move because a wheelchair rider arrived, it became apparent that he was with her, but she was not with him. But the guy managed to end up sitting with her anyway.

Whenever I looked up from my book I saw them chatting. The woman's expression was friendly. It happens sometimes. Some woman are more willing to put up with this guy. But then the really odd thing happened.

As the bus approached the guy's stop, he offered his right hand to the woman. She shook it. He then put his right arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze. I nearly screamed in surprise. I have watched women bolt out of their seats for less reason in the presence of this guy. But this woman appeared unbothered.

The guy and the woman stood up to wait for the Howe Avenue stop. He walked to the front of the bus; she stayed in the middle. But once both were on the sidewalk, they walked off together.

Is this a foretelling of things to come in 2008? First Obama knocks off Hillary in Iowa, and now this. What's next?

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