Kindness of Strangers

So I was just on my way home when all of a sudden the bus started making a horrible noise and came to a stop.  The bus driver hopped out to check things out and then gave it another go and clearly the bus had reached it's end.  Luckily, I was relatively close to home, unfortunately it was still about a 20 minute walk home.  And did I mention it was cold.  As I was taking a moment to think what to do next, the bus suddenly emptied out.  It was a fairly full bus and all of a sudden everyone but three of us and the bus driver were gone.  And they weren't just waiting on the sidewalk or the next bus stop for the next bus.  They were just gone, they faded away into the darkness.  And there is no way they all lived nearby. The bus always has a good chunk of people when I get off much further along the route. I'm still stumped where they all went.

We asked the driver if we could wait in the heated bus until the next bus comes along and he was nice and friendly.  The three of us left were youngish women. I ended up checking my app and saw it was another 10 minute wait and struck up a conversation with the bus driver, chatting about where I was going, that it was his last run and what happens next with the bus.  When suddenly one of the other passengers was ready to get off, she had called her husband to come pick her up and she offered a ride, saying that she overheard where I was going which was where they were going (mental note, it's beneficial to be chatty). The other young woman asked if she could come since she was just the next street up from us and didn't want to be last one left on the bus.

We all had a nice little chat on the 5 minute ride.  The couple had moved from Michigan, upper peninsula area so chatted about how our weather isn't that bad compared to that.  And then we all bonded over the Whole Foods we were all near. 

It just gave a nice light step in my walk home.  It's a nice community I live in and now I just have to remember what they all looked like in case we run into each other next time at Whole Foods.