Our Bus Our Living Room

Public transit… Our living room activities mostly take place on the buses and trains of San Francisco. If we get on a bus at an early enough stop, we can consume the entire back row of seats; there’s five of us and there’s five seats. Our deepest conversations happen there, we talk about things like “How do number base systems work?” “Why is it not OK to pick up food from the ground close to a train station,” (answer Pee). “Where do puddles underground in train stations come from,” (same answer.) Some of our conversations like the pee exploration gather other bus passengers. A young lady with her one year old strapped to her chest figured she’d have to have the conversation with her kid soon enough, and wanted to get the youths’ take on public pee in the city. This often leads to utter hilarity—our 4 year-old No. 2 wasn’t sure it was such a bad thing to pee on walls. Most of our conversations draw more quiet audiences—the ladies grinning and chuckling as our oldest, then four years old, and I discussed how we eat meat, muscles are meat, and therefore we eat muscles. From there it was on to more draconian topics like blood. (Yes, No. 1’s a died-in-the-wool meat-eater). Sometimes our reverie is interrupted by others who feel the need to contribute to our entertainment. Who needs cable? Did I see the Super Bowl this year? I didn’t need to. A tipsy gentleman give us the complete play by play on the way back from Oakland to San Francisco. He even acted out some of the more linear plays for us in the aisle of the train. Other we provide unexpected ‘entertainment’ for others. I’m sure, not everyone in the back of the bus was interested in listening to the travails of Scooby Doo overlaid with the adventures of Groot as we trundled home from last Sunday’s birthday party. That gives us what feels like a clubhouse on the bus.

What about you? Do you spend the majority of your quality time in or out of the house? What’s your favorite quality time activity?

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