The View From the Bus: To Market, To Market

I frequently see people on the bus loaded down with bags of groceries.

Just last week a couple of international students, boarded the bus. She was in a wraparound  dress with a geometric gold/turquoise/burgundy design. He wore a dashiki style shirt with a similarly African design.

Between the two of them they were loaded down with about a dozen plastic Walmart bags. They took separate seats across the aisle from each other, so that each of them had an extra seat available for their bags.

The rules of the bus prohibit having anything sitting on the floor or aisles in such a way that could block people moving freely. Families with multiple grocery bags do a continual juggling and rearranging of everything to keep control of their things. It can be difficult enough to maintain your seating in a bus that's constantly starting, stopping, making sharp turns, and otherwise doing its best to throw everyone off balance. Add to that a collection of lumpy, off center bags of groceries and it can be like a Keystone Cops film.

Many years ago my wife and I were without a car while a certain nationally known transmission repair shop (which shall remain nameless) took over 5 weeks to to do what should have been at most a one week job. I rode the bus to work and back every day that December (which is another story I should tell on this blog some day). Karen and our three young boys stayed at home for the most part.

One day, while I was at work,she decided to take the boys (all under the age of three) on the bus and head to the grocery store. It turned out to be such a troublesome and complicated task, keeping track of three boys (one in a stroller) and several bags of groceries while riding the bus. After that misadventure, we waited until Saturdays to do our shopping, so we could make it a team effort.