November 30, 2006

Bus Chick, Transit Authority
Can I ask you something?

By CARLA SAULTER

One of the best things about riding the bus is talking to strangers. In my years as a full-time bus chick, I have gotten to know the people I share this city with in a way that would simply not have been possible from the isolated bubble of a car.

One of the worst things about riding the bus is talking to strangers. As most bus riders know, strangers can be annoying, or boring, or crazy. Strangers sometimes interrupt yourright at the best part of a good book and, no matter how many times you attempt to return to reading, proceed to tell you everything you never wanted to know about boa constrictors or child-proof pill bottles. They sometimes ask for your phone number or give you theirs. (This isn’t always a bad thing — I’ve made several friends on my regular bus routes — but it’s all about approach and intention.) Strangers offer you copies of Awake! or Back to Godhead or ask if you are saved. They ask you to donate to their “hooker funds” (seriously), sign up for Amway, or loan them your cell phone for a “quick” call. (Contrary to the assertions of one reader, I do not advocate the borrowing or loaning of cell phones except in cases of dire emergency.)

Some strangers ask personal questions, and they seem especially fond of asking them of me. With surprising regularity (apparently due to my “unique” appearance), I am subjected to one or more of the following questions during my bus conversations:

Where are you from? [Seattle] No, I mean where are your parents from? [Seattle and Pittsburgh]

What’s your nationality? [American]

What’s your background? [Let’s see…I majored in English…]

What’s your last name? [Saulter]

You Creole or something? [Nope. I’m a fan of New Orleans, if that counts.]

Habla espanol? [Si, un poquito.]

And, the most popular: What are you? [A daughter, a sister, a friend, a writer, a human, a carbon-based life form...]

All those folks should have taken lessons in directness from the man I sat next to on the #4 a couple of weeks ago. Before my butt had fully hit the seat, he asked, “Are you Black or white?”

The answer, for him, and for all others I might encounter on a bus in the future, is: Both.