The Day of a Thousand Nights: Part Two: Anyway you want it, thats the way I need it...

Getting to fashion square mall is a two part journey, one short and one that seems to stretch on for hours.  The same way they differ in elapsed time they differ in the company you will keep.  The bus from my squat three to four story apartments to the transit station at the downtown mall is mercifully empty on most occasions.  You sit as you we're MEANT to sit, free from the uncomfortably close confines of strangers.  The bus FROM the downtown transit station to the eventual destination, however, is crowded and loud and oftentimes ripe with the odor of a good two dozen agitated and car-less passengers.  

The seating arrangement is just about the same on every bus, but if you're lucky you'll be on one with a scrolling sign that reads the date and time.  These things are important when judging the time elapsed and good for estimating your time of arrival.  Another perk of the slightly fancier buses is a protruding rectangular button on the posts the gleams red like rose petals preserved in acrylic.  The button reads STOP and it saves you the slight trouble of having to crane your body around to reach and get a good hold on the many plastic coated wire pull chords the lumbering beasts of public transit offer. 

The short ride bus, this day, was the fancier one... The long ride, however, was not...

Getting on as soon as it arrived, regardless of there tendency to wait until the official arrival time to play catch up with there schedules, the bus was still empty.  As I walked through the folding glass doors I grasped the handholds but before pulling myself up took one final glance at the yellow score board like bus sign along the bus's side.  It, of course, read "7:FASHION SQUARE", just as it had when I saw the bus approach.   A tiny inkling of paranoia in me always fears getting on the wrong bus, so it behooves me to double check the sign (first brooding signs of OCD, perhaps?).

Once inside I lifted my Transit Card into view of the stoic and apathetic driver, who gave it no more than a sideways look before gesturing me onward.  I took a seat dead center of the bus, just at the end of the front row, just before the "step up" that lead to the rear seats.  I take this seat more often than not because it affords certain advantages over the others.  For one: you always have a clear view of the upcoming stops, something the seats to the front and right doesn't provide due to being oriented directly behind the driver. 

I took my seat and waited for the rest of the passengers to pile in.  The bus was half full by the time the driver pulled out of the station, and as we drove parallel to the downtown mall we picked up more and more people at every stop along the way.  Halfway between the the downtown mall and the corner the bus was a picture perfect example of the melting pot in action.  Every minority present in Charlottesville was in attendance here, most speaking in there native tongues which turned the normal expected chatter into a veritable din of unfamiliar sounds from every range of language spectrum.  If you listened closely you could discern the individual forms of speech.  To my front: The subtle tweeting of the Indian couple, to my right the smooth enunciation of the Mexicans who sat across.  Behind me I could barely make out deep African tones, and deeper still what had to be an Asiatic chattering.  The sounds alone weren't unpleasant, but I still felt oddly out of place there. 

And so I fell back on the number one fail-safe of awkward social situations: I pulled out my cellphone at tinkered with it intently, refusing to even acknowledge my surroundings.  First order of business was to check the time and see if I had any messages, missed calls, texts, ect...  Next was to send what I hoped would be a witty text to my friend Colleen.  It read "Do you think Pirates are considered a minority?".  I hoped, but didn't really expect, for a quick response.  And last but certainly not least, I just sat there holding it absent mindedly going through the menus attempting to acquire an air of business, a "can't talk, on the cell phone" sort of look.  High tech fidgeting at its finest, and to think, people used to twiddle their thumbs and bite there nails.  When I had exhausted the admittedly poor reserves of the phone, I relinquished it to my pocket and stared out the window. 

There is a certain mindset one must reach to successfully navigate public transportation unscathed, a sort of zen space where time slows and skips and thoughts bellow and bloom and obscure your surroundings with oh so distracting daydreams.  Keep in mind, this has its own inherit danger.  There is the risk of missing your stop altogether, but thankfully I always seem to "come to" at the exact moment I reach my destination.  Its like seeing things in your peripheral vision, you see them, you REACT to them, but they aren't in focus and thus: unimportant as a whole until you need them to be.  As such, just as I was pulling into the Fashion Square parking lot, reality jerked back into the forefront, and in an instant I could no longer even remember what stray thoughts I had been absorbed with moments before, and believe me, my mind LOVES to pick up strays.  As the bus circled the parking lot I got a phone call on my cell, it was Gabe's mom....

"Hello?"

"Hi, its Zak?"  I asked in the form of a question, JEOPARDY!

"Oh! Hi, yes, have you gotten there yet?"

"Just pulling into the parking lot, will be at the stop in a sec."

"Ok, is Gabe there?"  She inquired, and internally I pondered 'where the hell else would he be, mad woman?'

"Ummm I don't know, but he SHOULD be."

"Ok, well have him give me a call when you run into him."  As if this wasn't planned out from the get go.

"Sure thing, will do.  Bye."

"Ok, bye..." She said with a chuckle...

Overbearing mother may win this round yet...