everyone's equal on the bus

when i visited LA, i remember my friends who i was staying with told me i could use their car to get around. i told them i wasn't really comfortable driving in LA and i would take the bus. both gave me a look. "no one in LA takes the bus. pearl, that is for like the immigrant workers." i remember thinking, omg, what?! i replied. everyone uses the bus in philly.

it's funny. philly is a city with the haves and the have nots. i mean it is like that in any metropolitan city, but in philly, the lines are pretty distinct. you have the rich neighborhoods two streets over from the poor neighborhoods.

sometimes i get lazy in the morning and don't feel like walking to work, so i wait with the bus crew. all of us holding our 2 bucks, a token or a senior citizen pass. today as i sat on the bus, i often just sit and enjoy morning daze listening to music or reading. today, i looked around. the bus is an interesting biosphere of people. you have men in smart business suits who carry business cards with watermarks and wear cufflinks. you have blue collar workers with dirt underneath their nails going home from the night shift. you have old rich ladies dressed in their minks and holding their chanel bags. you have teen mothers with their babies crying and their siblings drinking soda and eating cheetos at 8 in the morning. you have students. college. high school. grad school. you have punks. you have yuppies. preps. thugs. here, we all are. sitting on the bus. giving up our seats to the elderly. we're all equal on the bus. you don't get a better seat if you are in a higher tax bracket. there is no snobbiness or attitude. taking the bus isn't reserved for the broke and middle class. it's for all classes.

i like how sitting on the bus you can have the business man sitting next to a thug and both are listening to their shiny iphones.

we all pay the 2 dollars to ride the bus and mr. investment banker has to sit in the seat that smells like pee in his brook brothers suit since he got to the bus late, while the homeless guy is sitting in a clean seat.

in philly, the bus always wins.