There's a poem in there somewhere....
It runs across Calgary from ghetto to slum, then back again. Now maybe it's the hours I take it, respectable people take the bus from 7-9 to get downtown to work, then again from 4-6 from downtown to get home again, but when I take the bus, given the odd hours I work, it's a different crowd completely.
Teen single mothers pushing baby carts. Guys on their cellphones, the cellphone just the polite prop, really they're talking to the whole bus..."Just got out of prison....yeah, 2 hours ago...is she waiting for me?...tell my kids I miss 'em, eh?....Tell her I'm still hard for her...Yeah, missed them something fierce....just got out 2 hours ago...". Old folks coming home from the legion. Strangely made up old ladies and their shopping trollies, other people trying to carry on conversations on their cell phones but prison dude, he's talking too loud and they have to yell to to make themselves heard. The weekend stop in Kensington, more inebriated passengers board, people chatting at the stop get separated in the rush to get on, almost about to get lucky but he or she has disappeared and they don't care, they can make new friends, the sober talking loudly about the 12 steps in AA, what step they're on, the not so discreet fraternity of unrepentant and reformed alcoholics...
I could drive, I don't have a car but I could get one, only it doesn't work into the budget, not now, there are still too many bills to be paid. And the bus is cheap, it's quick enough, and somewhat entertaining in a circus-sideshow kinda way...