everyday at the bus stop

those of you who take public transit every day know this drill, no matter where you live*. on occasion, your chosen method of transport gets you to where you're going in record time---but alas, the occasion in question can usually be translated to "slightly more often than once every leap year."

more of the time, the daily public transit-taker is forced to build an extra delay-time-cushion into the schedule---assuming said one is meant to be in a particular place at a predesignated particular time. often, such rides will pass without anything other than the normal sorts of incidents one comes to expect along one's normal route; the one dude nearly kicking in the back door of the bus cos he missed it when it was sitting at the stop and the driver isn't in a particularly charitable mood, etc.

every once in awhile, however, a good story comes out of one's public transit habit. or at least, a semi-amusing one...

my usual route of a morning involves a bus line that hops on Lake Shore Drive for a bit. today, that bus ride also involved two guys with JVC camcorders (i think they used VHS-C, although i'm not positive) and their friend, who they were taping from various angles as he rode the bus. both camcorder-wielding guys had neck straps; one had a full-sized tripod attached to the base of his camcorder as well, and was setting it up in the middle aisle of the bus to tape his friend while we were on the 'express' bit of the journey so people weren't getting on and off. i'd had my headphones on and had been idly spacing out while staring out the window and listening to the Lansing-Dreisden CD i'd been lent the day before, puzzling over why the vocals were buried so in every bloody song.

when i noticed what was going on, i stopped the CD and started to listen, but couldn't quite figure out why they were taping their friend. was it for a class project? a personal project? was this the only taping they were doing, or was this one scene out of many? i suppose i could have asked, but i didn't want to interrupt. i also suppose i was making assumptions that this guy they were taping was a friend who'd agreed to this---would've been a whole other wrinkle if it were actually a stranger they'd talked into agreeing to whatever they were taping.

so many possibilities, and all of them got off the bus before i did.

* = unless, of course, you live in Phoenix. XD