Bus-Stop Encounters

I don't know what it is. When my friend HPC first pointed it out, I didn't believe her, but I've come to accept that it's true: people just walk up and talk to me.

I can't really explain it. I've been told that I'm intimidating-- really, honestly scary at times. And yet, if I'm standing in line at the grocery store, if I'm filling my car with gasoline, riding in an elevator or on an escalator, maybe browsing books in a store, just minding my business and strolling through the park, people seem compelled to talk to me.

At first, I thought this happened to everybody. If there's somebody else waiting at a counter in the cheesemonger, don't they make polite chit chat about how they just love orkney cheddar? Or if you're standing around on the train platform, make some dig about how public transportation is so unreliable? I mean, I never actually initiated any of these conversations, but I responded cordially and went about my business.

It turns out, apparently this is not the case.

For all this, I can't really explain the phenomenon. It just happens. Take today for example: I was perched at a bus stop on Union Street, the main drag through the city centre. It was around 7pm and I sat with my two bags of groceries and played around with my new mobile, trying to figure out how to change the ringtone. I still haven't figured it out, but in the meanwhile an elderly gent shuffled up and sat next to me, and asked me the time and if i was looking forward to my tea. he was kindly enough, with his pageboy cap and tweed jacket, and he walked with a cane, which I find automatically endearing. I said I was looking forward to fixing some supper, and he told me about how he'd been out for the day in Inverurie to visit his brother-in-law, and the two together had gone to visit yet another brother-in-law who is in hospital. Now, bear in mind that all of this information was completely unsolicited.

Now, I've got a Midwest accent that you can spot at a 150 yards, there's no denying it. Frankly, it grates on my own ears nowadays, and I don't really know how anybody can stand listening to me-- my own voice annoys me, let alone anybody else. And there's no pretending I'm from 'round these parts, either: my Scottish accent is still appalling, despite my best efforts. Le sigh. So when he asked where in America I was from, I wasn't all that surprised. I told him Michigan, and he began to tell me about how he knew where that was because he'd been driven in a military convoy along the Trans-Canadian Highway for his flight training out in British Columbia during WWII. He told me about taking the ship over, how they docked next to the Queen Mary, how he saw the Statue of Liberty for the first and only time at 4 in the morning, how women had laid out the best breakfast he's ever tasted on the docks upon their arrival, the fresh fruit, eggs and meat they had only dreamed about while on the steamer from Ireland. All the while, I smiled and nodded, laughed at the appropriate moments and genuinely marvelled at what he was telling me.

Telling me, a perfect stranger.

I guess it's the same way women hand me their infants while I'm working as a photographer's assistant. I even once had a woman thrust her newborn into my arms at the local grocers so she could have both hands free to paw through her purse in search of an elusive debit card. Who does that? People have handed me dogs on leashes as well, told me about their caring husbands, cancer scares, family vacations and housing plans. Mostly I just nod and smile, half-bemused and half-bewildered.

So, is it just me, or does this happen to you as well, my dear invisible readers? Do you have bus stop encounters with charming old gents who make you wish that your bus was five minutes late like it usually is?