A source of irritation

Moving to a new neighborhood changes your day on a fundamental level. The biggest change is that your commute. In this case, I find myself riding a bus. The bus is a curious environment. It is crowded and there are certainly rules about riding it. Since the bus driver has complete control over the environment, s/he is a bit of a dictator. Not a benevolent one, but a dictator who follows his/her whims. Catch her in a good mood and she will reopen the doors and let you on before the bus takes off. If he is in a bad mood, you may not be allowed on because "the bus is too full."

This was the case last week when Kitty and I were waiting for the B48. As the bus pulled up, the front was full of people. The bus driver wouldn't let us on. "Please, there is a lot of room to stand in the back of the bus!" Kitty yelled. "Just swipe our cards and open the back door."

At this point our bus driver (let's call him Shecky, for lack of a real name), starts motioning to his ears like he is deaf. Then he laughs and does it again.

"Please move to the back of the bus," Shecky half-heartedly announces into the microphone.

Let me interrupt for a moment. In a preliminary assessment of New York Bus Etiquette, it seems that it is not customary to actually move to the back of the bus to make room for other passengers. Even empty seats in the back of the bus must be avoided at all costs. Apparently, ascending the two small steps to the raised seating in the rear is too much of an effort. Rather than moving to the back, New Yorkers will do a sort of quarter turn with their bodies, in a an effort to make a bit more space. It's like one quarter of the hokey-pokey. A hoke, if you will.

Shecky looks at us and makes a chopping motion across his neck and laughs and laughs, then pretends to be deaf again. He shuts the door and the bus slowly lurches off.

Kitty and I start walking and we make it to the next bus stop before the bus arrives. Shecky pulls in, makes like he is going to open the door, then makes the chopping motion across his neck and pulls off, laughing all the while.

We continue our walk and at the next two stops he refuses to let us on. In the end, we walked to my subway stop and Kitty finished the mile-long walk to work. It probably took about the same amount of time as the bus would have taken. Why do we even try?