I commuted to Calvin by bicycle, back in those college days of vehiclelessness. But during a rainstorm, or when I had a little extra time, or when the temperature dropped too far below freezing for my West Coast blood, I would ride the bus. I would stand on the sidewalk and board The Rapid 6, in all its $0.50 student-discounted glory.
Nothing much happened on the bus.
One time, the driver asked if I went to Calvin, and we talked about Christianity for most of that six a.m. ride, at least until another passenger boarded and made me feel self-conscious about shouting halfway across the bus. Other times, I’d see someone from a year ago—an old suitemate, or a past rock-climbing partner—and we’d sit together and catch up. We had to. The bus forced a choice: the ritual of smalltalk, or the tabooed admittance that neither of us really cared that much about the other. Those meetings were allowed exceptions to the norm of public transit.