Michael: Why Hand it to Me?

The blackbird crackles
Like a broken down robot
From a sixties show.

Thursday, December 23, 2016

The world is a serendipitous place. And though that may be frightening every once in a great while, for the most part it affords mildly unexpected and amusing moments.

Take, for example, our experiences on the bus just last week. We walk or take the bus all the time, usually without incident or nothing worth journaling about. But last week I experienced a weird cluster of people handing me things to carry. And in our two years as passengers on the bus this was a first and a second.

The first incident occurred as we were returning to Panama from Costa Rica. When the bus assistant went to load our luggage on to the top of the bus he handed me his change belt dispenser.  That put a shine on my soul to believe that this guy thinks I’m trustworthy.

A couple of days later an old man with a satchel boarded the bus and handed it to me while he dug through his pocked for cash to pay his fare. All right; I’ll play along.

And just yesterday, though this doesn’t have to do with my being asked to hold anything of value, a bus assistant saw us with a gas canister waiting for a taxi to take us home and waived us to get on the bus. It’s suppose to be against the rules to bring gas on a bus, but he must’ve recognized us and knew that we’d be getting off just up the road so, out of kindness, quickly decided to waive the rule and help us out.

I enjoy that in so many ways life is a role of the dice and sometimes you get a cluster of fours or whatever. That’s probably why I don’t gamble. Why play to pay when you’re always playing anyway?