Bus-nuts (write of passage number thirty-one)

One sunny August Sunday morning, I make the daily heart-stopping dash across Quadra Street to the bus stop to catch the #6.  One of the old red buses pulls up, not an unusual sight on this route.  Nor is it particularly extraordinary that two twenty-ish/thirty-ish men are chatting animatedly to the driver; this is Victoria after all. Their voices are genial, excited, happy. They exude joy and boyishness.

I'm about to focus my attention elsewhere when an older man boards the bus, and asks about the bus number.  He's asking about the 4 digits above the window, not the route.  (I can't quite remember, but I think it's an 8000 number.) When the driver inquires why he wants to know, he shrugs and chuckles: "Just a bus-nut."

Well, the younger men go crazy, they shake his hand, and the three of them sit companionably at the front (one actually perched in the luggage recess) and reel off digits and letters:  "Oh, that's the LTC-DTC, the ones with the white steering wheels…."  The driver adds his two cents every now and again.

I smother a grin and look out the window.  I'm in Victoria.