A Quiet Moment, In the Dark

Sheesh!  What's with all the bus posts lately?!  I really gotta get out more...


I am a full block away from the stop when the bus zips by.
Two minutes early than it should.
In the snow-bright darkness of a winter’s morning, it hardly seems fair.  I stop, blink dully in the direction of its retreating taillights, a shallowly breathing statue, watch as the bus heads toward the light, watch as it turns and disappears.
Twenty minutes until the next one. 
I take a step back toward the house.
Fweep.
I take another step.
Fweep-fweep.
My corduroys are whispering what can only be considered obscene comments about the length of winter, of my proclivity toward foodstuffs covered with gravy, about short, somewhat pear-shaped women and the inevitability of the next size up in pants.
Corduroys:  fashion’s little snipers.
I turn back toward the beginning of my work day, head toward Central.
The 17’s going to show up two minutes early?  Pfft.
I’ll take the Number 10.
Frankly, I love the 10.  There’s something refreshing about a bus where children ride in grocery carts, groceries ride in strollers, and an 82-year-old woman regularly stands, announces her age, and then does a quick step ball change while shouting “You’re only as old as you feel!”
Yes.  The 10 is where I belong. 
It’s roughly a mile walk – all uphill, of course; and by the time I arrive at the top of the hill, I am warm, no small thing in Minneapolis in December.
Thank you, thighs.
And the 10 arrives moments later, and I step up and into the crowded bus.