Pardon me

Two significant events happened on the bus this morning.


First, I was a bit early (after dropping off the kids at school and daycare), and my wife was running a bit late. So we both ended up being on the same bus on the way to work. Was able to sit next to her. That was nice. :)


And second, the next stop after she got off, two young fellas -- in their early 20s, I'd say -- got on. I was sitting on the window end of the bus seat, and they were on the aisle, across from each other, chatting.

A woman, probably in her early 50s, had boarded at the same time as the two fellas, and was standing in the aisle.

My personal policy is that I'll offer up my seat to women who are older than me, men who are elderly, and people in general who are clearly weak, tired, or infirm. I don't offer my seat to guys only slightly older than me: it's a masculinities thing; the very offer would be an insult to their manliness, and they wouldn't accept.

After a few moments of my assessing that the youngster sitting next to me wasn't going to be offering his seat to the lady, I tapped him on the shoulder, pointed to the lady and said, "Hi! I'm going to be giving that woman my seat." So he got up, I got up, and the woman took my seat.

"Umm -- would you like to sit down?", he asked, still standing.

"No thanks: I'm getting off pretty soon," I said brightly. "Pretty soon" being relative, of course. So he sat down and resumed his conversation.


In my decision-making process prior the transaction, I had weighed up the niceness factor of giving the lady my seat, versus the negatives of making the young guy look like an ass.

But I figured, "eh".


--GG