I had a milestone birthday in June. I talked about it in my recent blog post, The BINGO Card of Life. Since then, I’ve made changes. Not big changes – just small ones to make this decade a little healthier and more interesting than the last. I’m eating better, losing weight, and even showing up occasionally at the gym instead of just buying annual memberships. The most radical change I’ve made is riding the bus to work.
Riding the bus was outside my comfort zone just a few months ago, but I knew I could figure it out if I tried. Kids do it every day, right? I went online, checked the schedule, downloaded the app, and bought the ticket – and I did it all on my cell phone. It couldn’t have been easier. When I got on the bus, I scanned my ticket right from my phone screen and then sat down. Easy-peasy! I didn’t have to pay cash or even talk to the driver. I just acted like I knew what I was doing – and once again – acting like I knew what I was doing worked! (It’s a great skill to develop by the way – acting like you know what you’re doing.)
I learned a lot that first day on the bus. I learned that you may sit quietly, look out the window, read, sleep, listen to music on BTPM Classical, talk to the person next to you, or even talk to yourself if you want. No one really cares what you do on the bus so long as you don’t bother anyone else.
I did discover one drawback of taking the bus though; you can’t go back home if you forget something, or in my case, if you split your pants! That happened to me on Tuesday. When I sat down, I heard, “that tearing sound” that Morty Seinfeld describes on a classic Seinfeld episode. My well-worn work pants had split down the middle. It wasn’t a huge split, but even a small split in the seat of your pants is horrifying. The woman next to me heard it and glanced my way with a knowing, sympathetic smirk. My only choice was to hide the split all day by wearing my shirt untucked. It was a breezy solution, but it worked. No one at BTPM noticed – and obviously, none of my BTPM Classical listeners knew that the guy introducing The Big One at 1 had a split in the seat of his trousers.
Indeed, splitting my pants was an unfortunate introduction to riding the bus, but I plan to keep riding the bus anyway. Maybe it was all just an initiation. Maybe the universe just needed to see what I was made of.
