Letter From London - Humorous Gossip From London

Why I Live in the UK - 20 April

Dear Lulu,

Why I Live in the UK – reason #1. This of course reminds me of the wizened and wonderfully endearing Eudora Welty and her short story: Why I Live at the PO…although totally unrelated as my first reason which involves taking the bus.

The other day, the number 139 bus was making its way down Baker Street, passing the Sherlock Holmes Museum, his fictional home at 221B Baker St, Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia, stopping near The Sherlock Holmes Hotel.

I was perched in my favourite spot: top deck, front seat, left side. Peering down, I noticed a middle-aged couple board; muffled conversation ensued. They then exited and walked five feet ahead to the ‘buy your ticket here’ box where they stood huddled together trying to decipher the instructions. First the woman, then the man, with neither securing immediate results. After several minutes, the driver began to edge the bus up to the point of confusion ever so slowly. Finally, success. The woman secured the bus tickets and they then re-boarded the bus. I overheard an ever so casual “Thank you”, more like an afterthought. Now personally, I would have supplicated myself on the bus floor facing the driver’s cabin, articulating my appreciation profusely and making all sorts of promises I knew I couldn’t keep. In total, this moment of bus driver benevolence must have taken an impressive five, maybe six, maybe seven minutes.

After experiencing years of bus-frustration approaching potential bus- homicide, those Manhattan memories flooded back as I leaned back on the way to Regent Street. A very clear image of the oh-so-predictable 45 minute wait on the north corner of 42nd and 10th Avenues filled my waking vision. There I huddled, enduring typically frost-biting winter winds whirling deflated plastic carrier bags and discarded debris aloft in powerful vortexes, with me swathed in a huge green mohair, fake-furry-lined coat, long angora scarf wrapped around and around until only my squinting eyes behind protective sunglasses suggested that a human body inhabited that ludicrous, yet essentially life-preserving cocoon. Eventually a bus in sight - slowly, ever so slowly making its way up 10th Avenue to the bus shelter (I use this term lightly). I observed it coasting up to the traffic light on the other side of the street and stopping on green, then yellow, then red. (Don’t tell me the bus driver was keeping to a schedule). No sooner had the bus rolled up, when a mass of swarming, shoving, foot-stomping, shin-kicking potential passengers descended from absolutely nowhere pushing me out of the way – way out of the way. I usually found myself at the back of the queue, taken aback, as it were.

Finally on the bus, I stood amid the crush; the blood draining from my up held arm, my woolly-mitten-ed hand sharing a movable strap with a palpably disgruntled and resentful passenger, fighting me for full possession, I was jerked forward and backward as the driver sped up and then slammed on the breaks, sped up and then slammed on the breaks, until he saw a small figure up ahead. Predatorily, he leaned forward, focused on the unsuspecting victim like a circling hawk determined to terminate the life of a very small mouse out on the lonesome prairie. Zeroing in, coming up on the right, at full speed and resolve. Victory. The driver whizzed right passed the bus stop and the unsuspecting old woman. I looked back; she waved helplessly once she fully comprehended her predicament. Dear, dear, dear. I just pray it wasn’t Eudora.

TTFN, Maggie

Letters From London