And the Score Is....

5 Utilkilts on one no. 56 Express bus.
1 wears plaid knee socks with tassles (I suppose he might have been the Prince of Wales).
1 wears a mesh tank top over a fleece t-shirt.
2 have Plumber's Butt when they sit down.

That is all.

The Morning Commute, by the Numbers

Thursday, this is how the Number 37 bus going into town looked, by the numbers:

Men making last-minute adjustments to their comb-overs: 3

Young women sharing and applying the same stick of roll-on deodorant under the work clothes they were already wearing: 2

Women trying to apply lip liner while the bus went over construction speed bumps, to disastrous results: 1

High schoolers trying to snort Capri-Sun in through one nostril and out through the other: 4

Number who succeeded: 1

Men trimming nose hair while reading The New York Times: 1

Look Out for Flying Nail Bits

It's funny how the morning bus riders, at least on the 56 in West Seattle, think of the bus as the extension of their bathrooms, a place to continue their morning primping and prep work for the day. Yesterday, in one seven-mile ride, my fellow riders included:

• An older woman who clipped her fingernails for 25 minutes, with nail bits flying all around the bus. One landed in the lap of the middle-aged man next to me who just looked down, muttered softly, "Really?" and brushed it away.
• A young woman whose spiky stilletto boots had gotten wet with the first rain of fall (yes, in Seattle fall comes in August), so she unzipped her boot, flapped it in the aisle to air it out, and then while she was at it, decided to straighten the left leg of her pantyhose. And as she straightened the foot, then the ankle, then the calf, she realized she might as well straighten the whole leg. While she was deft and brisk about it, one doesn't expect to see someone else's Spanx at eye level, at least at that hour of the morning.
• Three guys who collapsed their drenched umbrellas and then shook them out, right in the aisle, like they were retrievers after a swim, so we could experience the rain outside all over again.
• A young professional type, who was reading "The Art of Machiavelli," I kid you not, who did the usual things like check his phone and slick back his hair, and then ended his bus ritual by pulling off his wedding band--and slipping it into an inside zippered pocket.

The View from the Back of the Bus

Friends, we are all just passengers on the great public transport of life. My goal is to share, and invite others to share, the real-world mashups that happen when dozens of strangers pile next to each other to head to work, home, or the endless loop in Fareless Square.

My view comes from Seattle, where there are earnest tech-heads, ambitious corporate types, unbathed Rasta-girls, helicopter moms, and busroute-savvy tweakers in equal amounts. I come not to judge, but to get us to the next stop.

All aboard?