When I take my son to school, we often take the M11. I have spent most of my life mocking/eschewing the public bus, because, well, it’s the bus. If you aren’t familiar with the MTA’s bus service, it’s like the subway but with more stops, less speed and populations that divide along the lines of the very young and the very old.  Despite my distaste, since having kids I often find myself on the bus, mostly hating every second of it. My hatred of the bus stems not just from its snail pace and the fact that no one heeds the “please exit from the rear of the bus” PSA, thus slowing down the travel even more, but because of the preteens (and toddlers) who ride it.

During rush hour – aka the times I need to ride – the bus is packed with middle school kids traveling to school on their own. As you may or may not know, middle-school kids suck the waz etiquette-wise.  These kids scream back and forth (often across the span of the bus) to one another, have no sense that their backpack is in my/my boy’s head/mouth/body region and don’t like to hold on to anything, resulting in them (joyously) hurling their bodies around while “trying” to balance as the bus moves. Meanwhile, the girls are all vying to be the center of attention with the sheer volume/pitch of their voice, and the boys are completely enrapt in their video games, with occasional (loud) whoops of joy or disgust at the mass murder of whatever imaginary village they are attacking. That might sound very sexist of me but trust me, it’s the girls who are loudest and the boys who seem to have an unspoken mantra of “the more violent and loud the game, the better.” (My husband can attest to this bro-code, but I won’t go off topic on his gaming because that really merits its own blog post).

Generally speaking, being on the bus is like being held captive by children/tweens/teens who fundamentally do not get or care that they are in public and/or that other people exist on their same planet. I often wonder if their parents know they behave like this. I can only hope that my quiet 10 year-old will not pull these shenanigans when she travels without an adult. These kids don’t give me much hope.

The good thing about me, if I do say so myself, is that I apparently have no problem scolding these kids, much to the embarrassment/dismay of my own. I believe I have mentioned that I am that crazy lady who has, on occasion, tapped on car windows to inform drivers that they almost fucking ran me over. I’ve also done things resembling the following:

1. Told a 13 year-old girl to keep her voice down (she ignored me. Blatantly. I was ready to take it outside but it was my stop so I didn’t)
2. Told an older teen whose backpack was – it felt purposefully, with attitude –  mashing into the entire left side of my body  – that I hoped my son was never as rude/inconsiderate as he was (he said, “whatever, lady,”proving my damn point)
3. Maybe shushed a 3 year-old who was singing loudly, but I tried to do it on the D-L, all the while giving the kid’s parent the evil-eye a-plenty. By the by, these glares are easier to get away with if you are with your own moderately quiet child. You’re welcome.

Anyway, back to the bus. Today we rode the M11 earlier than usual. We sat in the back which I almost never do because the back is apparently “their” – that’d be the middle-school posse – turf and trust me, the further you are from them, the better, because even non-noise sensitive folks would deem these kids “loud as shit.” But today the bus was nearly empty when we boarded – always a good sign – so we headed to the back, joining an older woman and a quiet tween sitting in that back row with the high, leg-dangling seats.  A stop or two later a girl looking to be nine or 10 boarded the bus. I noted her age mostly because she seemed young to be on her own, younger than the rowdy preteens, which then made me wonder if my own 10 yo could mange the bus system on her own (please, yes, but sadly maybe not yet). This girl walked back toward us and sat down in that “why in the world would you choose to sit here but all kids do” back row. She whipped out her phone and turned on music at a volume that can be called “I just walked into the Palladium in 1988” level. Several heads turned, going from the front of the bus on back. Obviously I was one of the head-turners. Even my boy who kind of acts like one of these ingrate tweens from time to time turned his cranium. The girl averted her eyes. Or to be fair, did not lift her eyes from her phone. Aka she made eye contact with no one.

Two songs later, I turned once again to give her the stink eye, sure she would get the hint. Once again, this child  busily stared into her phone, looking my way not at all. “Why is her music so loud?” my son eventually asked. I toyed with saying “because she is inconsiderate;” or “because apparently no one taught her manners;”or “because she doesn’t give a shit,”  but instead, recalling that he was a boy of seven and not a peer or my beleaguered husband,  I said, “I have no idea.”

An older woman in the front started grumbling about her ears hurting (this may or not be a true part of the story) which I took as ammo/permission.  So, I turned around and firmly, but relatively nicely (for me) asked the girl to please turn her music down. She did, immediately. This was an unusual turn of events as the Jugend typically ignore me. I felt it was a job well-done.

A few stops later, we got off the bus. Naturally, so did the girl. I held the door for her even though I DID NOT WANT TO because *I would show her* but hello, I am not a total animal and she was, well, a child about a quarter of my age.  When we were all off the bus, the girl said to me in a polite, genuine tone, “I’m really sorry about the music. I didn’t realize it was so loud.” I felt a tiny bit (but not completely) like an asshole (though was pleased to not have, say, name-called her to my kid) and told her it was okay, that I appreciated her turning it down. And then she said, “have a nice day” with no irony whatsoever.

That, my friends, is how I got schooled by a child. Who was not the inconsiderate brat I thought she might be, but was instead a courteous and pleasant person who had made a bad judgement call. And apologized for it.