Saturday, July 31, 2010

Heard on the Street. . .

My wife took the car to go to a picnic at a co-worker's house this morning, so my son and I caught the bus to the mall. He needed to buy a birthday present at the Lego store, and I thought I'd treat him to lunch and a movie.

Getting the bus turned out to be less hassle than I'd expected. WMATA, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, has GPS-equipped buses, so we were able to log on, find the time the bus was expected at our stop, then leave the house a few minutes before that.

The driver was a man in his 30s with near waist-length dreadlocks. Most of the people said hello to him when they got on, and thanks when they got off. The mall was at the end of the line, and when we got off, I overheard him tell a woman her hair looked nice. She told him thank you.

Seems like you must know most of these folks, I said to him.

See 'em every Saturday, the driver replied. These are my people.

Later, waiting to get popcorn at the movies, I heard an older woman ask a younger woman (her daughter?) if she was planning to go out tonight and what time she'd be back.

I don't know if I wanna go out with him tonight, she replied. Not if we're just gonna break up. I'd feel too sad.

So why not just spend the night with him at his place, the older woman said, and then break up in the morning?

1 comment:

Rachel said...

I used to LOVE going shopping or to the movies with my dad. We never had a day quite like that one though.