Chronicles of a Procrastinating Novelist Volume 22: The Lean
As a fledgling veteran of the public bus system of a major city, I’ve been highly conscious of the culture to which I’ve been inducted. I NEED the service and am therefore determined to become an expert and courteous rider. Give up your seat to the elderly or stroller bound infant. Don’t talk loudly on your phone (we ALL hate you). Thank your driver when you step off. However, while these customs are largely voluntary, there’s one feature of joining the public commuters that appears involuntarily infectious. The Lean.
My first bout hit me on one of those labile western mornings where the temperature dropped from 77 to the 30s in 12 hours, therefore the coat in which I’d left the house was appropriate to the former, but not the latter temperature. Freezing my butt off, gently dancing from foot to foot, and distrustful of the faded, begrimed schedule posted on the bus stop, I commenced The Lean.
Plant both feet, shift weight to the streetward foot, peek out from under the sad stop rain cover, and peer as far down the road in the direction from whence the bus will appear. Fail to spot the bus, resume normal standing with hopes dashed.
Any seasoned bus rider no doubt knows in their bones The Lean repeats itself at increasingly short intervals directly proportional to the amount of time the bus has left to show up. Every 5 minutes. Lean. Every 2. Lean. 30 seconds. 25. 15. 2. The first few times it hit me, I thought nothing of it and classified it as resultant of an I’m-cold-and-want-to-go-home attitude. Then I caught the bus at a crowded bus stop instead of my typical lonesome rider routine. Everybody did it. The college kid with a teal back pack and studded skinny jeans peeked surreptitiously up from his phone. The homeless guy with an Eastern European accent and a lint spackled beanie walked all the way to the median for a better view. The tiny Latino grandma with a dog in her stroller bent her shoulders street-ward at an angle that made me fearful for her already stooped spine.
Somewhere between cracking up, feeling silly, and going, “There’s my next blog post!” I suddenly stopped feeling like a neophyte bus rider. Call it a mountain made from mole hill, but I like my mole hill. It’s good for my self-esteem. For once, I actually belong because a couple times a week, I do The Lean.
Thank you for reading,
B
