The new thing on my block is the school bus that pulls up to a building across the street and down a bit from mine every morning at 8:04. The driver honks five times; shave and a haircut. There’s another attempt at 8:05. One morning I heard the ditty thrice and on that day, last week, I looked out the window in time to see a kid come outside holding—honest to goodness—a red apple. He gets a hand up into the bus and his mom waves from the stoop.
Where I come from, we couldn’t see the bus stop from our house. We waited outside, rain or shine or snow, trying to guess which would show up first: the bus or the sun? If we weren’t at the bus stop when the bus came around the bend, it wouldn’t even come to a complete stop. We were lucky to get all of our limbs clear before the door shut!
These Park Slope kids have it easy.
I don’t need to have flashbacks of road races after The Big Yellow when I’m running late for work.
