Interesting Characters

by Dena Birmingham

Public transportation. There is always at least one interesting character when one rides public transportation.

A homeless person lying across a row of seats riding the bus aimlessly just for the warmth.

A young man in black clothes muttering to himself angrily and punctuating his comments with a fist to the seatback in front of him.

A plump, older lady wearing pink lipstick and a hat the queen could wear to tea.

As I looked around the bus, I noticed there were no interesting characters riding today. Everyone looked pretty bland. Bored, tired faces heading home from work. Some reading or listening to an MP3 player. No oddballs or quirky folks. Weird.

My stop was coming. I put my book into my backpack and slid my arms into the straps. My stop arrived. I bent down and heaved up my computer monitor. The place a worked was throwing it away. I was so lucky to snag it.

As I waddled off the bus with my 25 pounds of cathode ray computer monitor, I again found myself wondering where the interesting character was.