My friends and I chatted as we got on the bus on the way to dinner, laughing and, not completely oblivious of our surroundings, but not entirely perceptive either. At the next bus stop, a man boarded the bus and noticed a white plastic bag at the foot of one of the seats. Whether he wanted to sit there or was worried about the contents, he asked us who the bag belonged to. We, of course, did not know the answer to this question, as we had only just noticed the bag when the man called our attention to it. He wavered for a moment, inspected the bag, as if expecting something to jump out at him, and then alerted the bus driver.
“There’s a plastic bag on the bus” said the man.
“Whose bag is it?” asked the bus driver.
“No one knows” said the man.
The bus driver looked in his rearview mirror, looking for the bag. He announced into the microphone “Whose white plastic bag is that?”. No one responded.
For a brief second, I contemplated the possibility that there was something in the white plastic bag—something menacing that had been left there on purpose, not hastily dropped by accident in an attempt to exit the bus quickly. Every muscle in my body tensed up, and my only thought was “I have to get off this bus.” I sheepishly suggested to my friends that we get off the bus at the next stop, and they agreed.
We pulled into the bus stop, and as my friends and I exited, the bus driver put the bus into park and walked to the seat with the white plastic bag. He opened the bag and found—trash. It was only a bag full of trash which had been left on the bus, seemingly by accident, or maybe on purpose by someone lazy.
Whether this man was being hyperviligant, or was trying to be a hero, or just wanted to sit in the seat but wanted to make sure someone else was not sitting there first, he absolutely did the right thing. No one thought it was silly to alert the bus driver to a bag that had been left alone on the bus—it was the logical next step. And no one complained about it or made him feel guilty about it.
Who knows if this guy is riding around the city, scoping out abandoned bags and alerting bus drivers, or if this was a one-time thing, but I will ride the bus more confidently knowing that guys like this are riding the buses too.
