Musical Chairs

An early 20's couple got on the bus near the park. She was a hipster with small, angular, wide framed glasses. He was tall, big boned, dressed sloppily and wearing huge lens geek chic glasses. They were a match made in heaven.

She looks surprised, waves to people she knows, and guides him down the aisle to where they were seated. Two hipster girls with trendy messenger bags who may have been a couple or perhaps were just good friends.

"How are you? I just got off work." "It wasn't so bad." Their conversation fills the rather crowded bus.

"Haven't I met you before?" The brunette hipster girl is scoping out the boyfriend.

"Maybe at a party. Or maybe on Facebook. I'm David." He extends his right arm barely covered by his too short tweed blazer.

The bus stops. It is a major transfer point and a number of people run for the doors in hopes of catching a transit vehicle idling in an adjacent stop.

The two seats in front of the hipster girls have opened up. David starts towards the seats, trying to pull his girlfriend towards them so that they can sit down. He reaches the seats at the same time as a very large, slightly unkempt woman who has entered the front door of the bus. She carries a large shopping bag and her eyes have the look of someone who is not quite all there.

A stand-off ensues. They glace at the aisle seat, then glare at each other, and finally warily lunge towards it. He gets off a little faster than she does and moves into the seat by the window, gesturing for his girlfriend to take the aisle seat. His girlfriend, however, is a bit distracted, and all of the sudden the large woman plops herself down in the aisle seat.

David stares at her incredulously. So do his new friends, the hipster girls seated behind. The bus is watching attentively as the woman plants her feet on the ground and stares straight ahead. His girlfriend stands sheepishly in the aisle and finally says, "well, then, I guess I'll go sit in the back!" Now David begins to exchange angry words with the woman. She does not budge and finally he shoves by her and stomps towards the back of the bus.

By this time the bus has reached the next stop. All of a sudden the woman gets up and slowly lumbers off the bus. The seats are now empty less than a minute after the incident. Shocked, the hipster girls turn to tell David the seat is now empty. He cannot hear them and they, and several other patrons, dissolve into laughter.

And the bus moves slowly into the night.