(I overhear a stranger on the phone as I walk to a seat.)

Stranger: “Did I tell you to fall? I didn’t tell you to fall. So why did you fall?”

(As people don’t generally fall on purpose or on command, I do wonder about the context. The only way I can make any sense of it is if she was giving instructions for a video game.)

(Our high school orchestra is on a trip to New York City and the teacher has hired a woman to point out information and facts about certain landmarks for the educational aspect of it. At this point, she is talking about the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Tour Guide: “John Roebling was one of the lead architects on the Brooklyn Bridge but for the life of me I can’t remember where he was from.”

Almost Every Student On The Bus: “Saxonburg!”

Tour Guide: “No, that’s not right. Oh, well, moving on…” *rambles on about something else*

(Our school is from Saxonburg and we literally have a park named after Roebling with a little Brooklyn Bridge model in the park.)

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(My sisters and I are in elementary school, between the ages of five and nine.  We live about a mile away from school in a house plopped in the middle of two major roadways, which means that we are the first stop on our route before the bus we take heads to the opposite side of town for the other kids’ houses. One day my mother has somewhere to be and asks her eighty year old grandmother to babysit for the afternoon, expecting us to be off the bus at 3:15 pm on the dot. When our bus approaches the intersection for our street, she slows at the turn, cranes her neck, looks at the house, changes lanes, and drives on forward instead without even stopping.)

Older Sister: “Our house!”

Bus Driver: “Nobody is home. I can’t leave you without your parents.”

Older Sister: “No, our great-grandma is home! She’s babysitting today.”

Bus Driver: “Nobody’s home. Now sit down and be quiet. You’re not going home to an empty house.”

Older Sister: “But grandma’s–”

Bus Driver: “I SAID, NOBODY IS HOME. There’s no car in the driveway!”

Me: “Nona is old. She doesn’t drive.”

Bus Driver: “I SAID SIT DOWN. YOU’RE NOT GOING HOME!”

Little Sister: *sobbing* “I WANT MY NONAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

(My older sister and I spend the rest of the route calming down a hysterical kindergartner while the bus driver yells at us every time we ask when we can go home. After the last house on the route she drives back toward our house, but again doesn’t drive down the road — just past it. She cranes her neck again to look for a car and drives straight instead of stopping or turning.)

Bus Driver: “UNBELIEVABLE. I can’t believe your parents would expect you to go home to an empty house–”

Me: “NONA! I can see her in the doorway—”

Bus Driver: “SIT DOWN! There’s no cars in the driveway.”

Older Sister: “Our grandmother doesn’t drive!”

Little Sister: *pressing her face against the window* “I WANT MY NONA!”

Bus Driver: “NONA’S NOT IN YOUR HOUSE! STOP CRYING! YOU’RE NOT GOING HOME!”

(The bus driver takes us back to our elementary school. By now it is after four pm.)

Bus Driver: “Go back inside and tell the principal what happened so they can look for your parents! I have a schedule to keep. I can’t be babysitting until your parents come home!”

(Apparently my great-grandmother panicked after not seeing our bus come when it was scheduled to, and had to track down my mother to tell her we didn’t come home. My mother then had to track down the bus company, and the bus company tracked down the bus driver, and the bus driver informed everybody that she refused to drop us off at an empty house and instead chose to drop us off outside of the elementary school where we would be safe. The elementary school that had locked its doors at three pm when all of the students had left for home. So THEN the bus company called the school in a panic asking if they had seen us, and all of the teachers who had stayed late that evening for prep work bolted out of the building to search for us. We were wandering the parking lot. A nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a snot-covered, red-in-the-face, hysterical five-year-old, wandering the parking lot, wondering why we weren’t allowed to play with our Nona. The bus driver continued to insist that she knew for a fact that no one was home for us because there were no cars in the driveway, and we were misbehaving and refusing to sit while the bus was in motion. We got a new bus driver on Monday.)

(My wife and I are taking the bus home from the GP’s, where we have been for a routine check-up. Among the details taken were our heights and weights, and I was surprised to learn I’m not as tall as I thought I was.)

Me: “I can’t believe I’m only 5’11” now. I used to be 6 foot. I was sure I was 6 foot!”

Wife: “Don’t worry. You’re six foot in every way that matters.”

Me: “That’s going on the Internet.”

(I’m on a bus after school and there are three teenage boys by the window of the bus. Every time the bus passes a new person they start shouting abuse at them.)

Teenagers: *making rude hand signs and swearing at two passers-by*

(The bus stops and the two passers-by get onto the bus and step past the driver.)

Driver: “Hey! You need to pay!”

Passer-by #1: “Oh, no, we’re not here to ride the bus.”

Passer-by #2: *holds up badge and points at teenagers* “Secret police. We’d like you to come with us.”

(The teenagers had been shouting at people the whole time and only just realized what was happening. They looked sheepish and got off the bus with the two undercover cops. The entire bus was laughing. As the bus drove off without them I saw the two cops shouting at them less than a foot away from the teenagers’ faces.)