My original choice for Today’s Perfect Morning was going to be the nice lady who gave me a lecture on Dale Carnegie while we were waiting for the bus–which took a long time to arrive. Actually, it was less of a lecture and more of a sermon.  She had a good point, but I was too stressed by the bus coming late to absorb it.

My current students would like a mention on this blog. I almost awarded them the title because their taunting of each other during our last activity of the day made me laugh quite a bit.  I am just not sure I should reward sarcasm.  Once I go down that road, I am not sure I can come back.

Instead, I want to relate what happened on my bus home today. The bus was crowded and I had taken a seat I was not accustomed to.  It was facing away from the bus motion and had a table in front of it.  I suppose it would have been good if I had had my laptop with me.  Instead of affording me a good view of the bus and the environment the bus was passing through, it gave me a view of about 12 or 13 bus passengers squeezed into the back of the bus.

Shortly before we passed the mall, a young lady got on the bus. She had with her an amazing smelling dinner in a crappy white (totally environmentally unfriendly) Styrofoam container.  Later she told me it was Greek food, but at the time, all I could think about was how good it smelled.

At some part of the ride, perhaps a stop or two later, I looked at her eating her meal and saw the most extraordinary thing. She had been balancing the box on the palm of her hand and not really holding on at all.  Just as I looked at her, the bus did one of its patented shimmy slides.  Her eyes widened and her concentration became laser focused.  She did not want to drop that box.  I can’t say as I blamed her.  As the bus rocked she moved the box about in a non circle just at her eye level. The bus swerved quite strongly and I expected the remains of her food to be all over that section of bus.  However, she proved adept at protecting her dinner and didn’t spill a drop.  It took some pretty quick thinking and manual dexterity, but she did it.

I am pretty sure I am applauding her skill, but another part of me just wants to make note of the entertainment value. Shortly after that a new passenger, complete with his own beer for the trip, got on and blocked my view of her.