Babies, Buses and Bees (ED! #09)

I was thinking about things while I was on the bus this afternoon. It's funny how much of my thinking I do on the bus or at least being transported from A to B in some way.
As I swayed from side to side with my 300 fellow passengers in a somewhat overcrowded bus, I couldn't help but notice that I was sharing my "double seat" with a young girl with a happy looking baby.
It was looking all round, gurgling and smiling happily, and it looked at me. I smiled. It smiled.

You have to admire babies, really. The way they learn about the world so quickly is amazing - they're so inquisitive.

I saw the learning process continue today as the happy baby extended his tiny arm towards me, reached out his fingers, wanting to touch and feel and generally sample the whole wide world around it, to learn new things, new textures..

It grabbed my tie. And put it straight in its mouth. Yaaargh!

I'm looking at my tie now, still soggy from baby dribble stain, with a dark patch between Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy.

But then again you can't hold it against them - babies have to do that kind of thing. It's the law. And all part of the essential learning process.

Do you know those baby activity centres? Fun things. All sorts of mirrors and things to touch, and the good ones have a button which makes a bell go ding. Babies love that.

So no surprise that when the happy baby on the bus noticed a brightly coloured red button with 'stop' written on it, it was delighted to discover that pressing it made the bus go ding.

"No dear, you mustn't do that", said Miss Parent. "The bus driver will be angry". Baby was having none of it.

Ding! Ooh, this button makes a dinging noise, mum, just like my activity centre at home. Ding! Ding! Ding! Well you can picture it for yourself.

That was about as exciting as my journey to work got this morning. But coming home this afternoon was more interesting still.

Sitting up the back end of the bus, as you do, and with yet another stranger borrowing a bit of my double seat, I couldn't help but notice what a great day it was.

Nice day, sun shining, world turning - can't be bad. Happy bus passengers, no drunks or lunatics, things were going well..

And then the tranquillity was brutally shattered by some bee thing - actually I think it was a wasp - getting on the bus (I didn't see him show his ticket) and generally deciding to fly around a bit.

It got tired of this very quickly and came to rest on the window ledge about five inches away from me.

There was a six year old on the bus who didn't like bees at all, and ran right up the other end of the bus. And who can blame her?

I would have done the same thing.. were it not for the fact that some woman was sitting to my left, obstructing my exit.

Considering that shrieking, standing up and then attempting to leave my seat by climbing over this woman would be an extremely undignified manoeuvre, I decided to sit it out.

Well I didn't have much of a choice, really. As close as this wasp was to me, there wasn't much I could do. It's easy to be brave when you have no choice.

It wasn't helped by the running commentary from Little miss minor at the front of the bus, "Mummy, mummy, there's a wasp there and it's going to sting that man!". Oh THANKS!

I adopted the cool approach, and stared nonchalantly out of the window, reminding myself that I was only sweating because it was a hot day.

And after all, what's the worst that could happen? OK, if it stung me it would hurt, yes, but it wouldn't kill me. I could handle it.

Whatever doesn't kill me can only make me stronger, huh? No permanent damage, that's what Penn & Teller say.

Well it sounds great but all those brave words have only just come into my head, they certainly weren't in my consciousness at the time.

In fact, it reminded me of when I was very young. I was terrified of bees. My mum would always say to me when we were in the garden and an unwanted visitor arrived, she'd say "Mind that bee, dear"..

So one day while I was still very young and I came hammering into the house from outside, mum naturally asked me what was wrong. "I saw a beedear!" I said.

If only it were that simple. Now I'm 25, nowhere to run, and sharing my bus journey with a beedear just a few inches away.

The funny thing was, it actually stopped moving. This cheered up little miss commentary, who offered "It's dead, mummy!". And then it started moving again!

Victor Lewis-Smith once said that the great British public is terrified of anything which stays still for a long time and then suddenly moves very very quickly.

Victor is god.
Anyway, by now this was all just too much - now there were several people leaving the seats around me, and even the lady previously blocking my exit to the left was not putting up with this, and moved up the bus a bit.

At this point I thought perhaps I could offer some useful advice to these worried passengers. Like "don't worry, wasps won't sting you unless you annoy them", or something.

I thought better of it. Mainly because I'm not used to public speaking, and secondly because this would have made me look extremely silly if this wasp had subsequently stung me and I'd shattered all the glass in the windows of the bus with my high-pitched cowardly screaming.

But I was going to be fine - of course I was. Wasps don't sting you unless you annoy them. And the chances of this wasp being brassed off at not having had their message printed on mailbox, or something, were fairly minimal.

So I still didn't move, and rode all the way home on the bus with Mr wasp now less than one inch away from me. I was at one with nature. And when my stop came, I got off, and walked up the garden path feeling very pleased with myself, like some kind of Doctor Doolittle.