In which the wheels on the bus go omg-did-he-just-say-that and round.

One of the joys and mini-miseries of being a daily frequenter of public transportation is being dropped into someone else’s world for a certain span of time, sometimes via dropping a few harmless eaves, sometimes via having to cram yourself into a train full of enthusiastically drunken and singrunting football fans. You’re there, I’m there, you talk, and my left earbud snapped off last week. You say something amusing or abgefallen, I scribble it down nonchalantly in my little notebook between Borchert quotes and a borscht recipe (I kid you not).    

The best situations are, of course, overhearing adorable or hilarious things. And sometimes the things are funny and awkward.    

For example, I give you Awkward Things Americans Say: 
- Young woman on the U-Bahn, talking on the phone, loudly: “I was dripping all over myself – a big pile of mucus and crap.” 
- On the S-Bahn, two young women (not American but about America): “If you go to the States, don’t eat the jell-o. It’s so sweet and waxy!”    
- Two young guys waiting for a train, the speaker looking confused: “…sexual connotation intended?”  

Though there are also awkward things that are not hilarious, just awkward and sometimes prone to squeam. 
- Train station entrance: An old man is sneakily taking pictures of a pretty young thing handing out free newspapers to the passers-by, his face not so sneaky. 
- S-Bahn: A couple of young, French-speaking girls gang up on one of their amies and dare her to pole dance around the center handle pole near the door. They play music on a cell phone. She doesn’t want to and motions to the other passengers in the half-full train, to which one girl retorts, “Ugh, ils s’en foutent!” Basically, they don’t give an eff. She caves and does a couple of spins until the electrowaves of awkward being emitted from the other passengers win out.      

And then there are the moments when you witness the worst of a person coming up to surface. 
- S-Bahn: A little boy is standing at the door, happily “holding it open” for people and playing soul music on what’s probably a nearby parental unit’s cell phone. An old man yells at him to turn it off. 
- Last week I was on the bus, sitting behind the bus driver. A black man and his two little girls run up to the bus and hop on just as the old, white bus driver is shutting the door. The black man flashes his ID card just like everyone else and heads to the back of the bus, but is summoned back by the driver saying, “Hey, hey come back! Not so fast! Not so fast!” He insists on closely examining the ID card, apparently sees that it’s valid, but then asks how old the girls are. Neither the bus driver nor the man speaks German very well and it takes a minute to get the question across. The youngest understands first and says they’re ages six and seven, leading the driver to demand the father to pay for them, saying you have to pay once they’re that old. He does, they go sit down.
On one hand, the bus driver is supposed to make sure people have paid for their ride. That’s just doing his job. On the other hand, I have not once in the 2+ years that it’s been required to show your ID on the bus seen a driver thoroughly scrutinize a card, nor ask the age of cute children who are obviously young. Additionally, this bus driver hardly glanced at any of the cards presented by the other passengers on the bus, all of whom, dare I say it, looked German.    

Sometimes the passive observations turn into situations that require not-so-passive reactions, like the people who spend their days riding the trains and begging for money. Each of them has a script that they've written for themselves and use to address the passengers in each car – I've become familiar with some of them after chance put us in the same car several times. Some are friendly, genuine-sounding and polite people, while others are clearly angry at the world, go and shake their paper cups in front of everyone's noses and then curse everyone out when no one gives. Either way, it's very conflicting. Then there are buskers who do the same thing, except their script is a song that they play over and over as they go from car to car. With my busker brother in mind, my wallet always opens up when a talented musician comes by with their cup. More rarely but not unheard of, people strike up conversations with strangers. I know the Germans (Northern Germans/Hamburgers) are (in)famous for their obvious stares and anti-mingling tendencies, but as with all stereotypes, plenty of people are just the opposite.
- U-Bahn: A wealthy-looking couple sits across the aisle from a rough-looking older man with a yellow lab. The woman comments on how handsome the dog is and starts asking questions about it. Well, it's my daughter's and I was just picking it up from blah blah blah. She comments again on how cute it is, looking at her husband and ending every comment with "right?" Then she notices that the dog has a small cut on it's leg and her attitude changes completely, telling the man with great authority that he should go the the pharmacy to get something for the cut, right away, it won't take any time. The dog grandpa hadn't noticed it and takes a closer look, making disconcerted faces that look a little forced to me – it's just a little cut. The woman continues to tell her husband how the man should go to the Apotheke to get some ointment for it, now talking about her fellow passenger in the third person. The husband looks a little embarrassed and quietly squeaks out, "You know dear, it doesn't looks that bad". She shushes, but keeps watching the dog, her face shifting back and forth between adoring smile and extreme concern/grump. Husband looks out the window.
- U-Bahn: I was reading a book on the way home from work when two teenage girls got on and sat next to and across from me, continuing their conversation loudly enough so that all could hear. One of them, clearly the alpha female, turns to me and says (in German), "Did you know that we're flying to London the day after tomorrow?" Uh, um, no? She asks me about London and I tell her I don't know it that well and haven't been there since I was 12. I thought she had asked me about London because she saw that my book was in English, but then she turned and asked the woman across from her the same thing, then the woman next to her. They were both polite but clearly taken aback. The older of the two women was in London recently and was happy to tell her the places they should visit when asked. This girl was pretty fearless (and pretty full of herself, I think), going against all social rules telling you to mind your business and not to annoy strangers. However, what struck me the most was how the dynamic of our little pod of seats suddenly changed. We'd gone from a group of unknowns, each of us purposely ensconced in our own private worlds via books, smartphones, whatever, to a new mini-community of strangers recently united by a common inquiry. We listened to one another's responses and smiled accordingly, said goodbye when getting up to leave. Part of me was annoyed with the girl for having invaded my sleepy, post-work, private, anti-social mode, while another, bigger part wanted to cheer her on and congratulate her excellent networking skills. A mind opener on many levels.

The adorable things usually involve small people, especially babies with giant eyes secretly playing peek-a-boo with you or trading grins when mama and papa are busy on their phones. Or a mother reading a chapter book out loud to her son while he rests his head on her shoulder, all the surrounding passengers quiet, listening in. My recent favorite favorite, however, was this: 
- On the S-Bahn, father and daughter sitting behind me are playing the classic memory game “I’m going on a trip to xxx and I’m going to bring…” By the time they started having memory problems, they had packed:
1 Fahrradreife (bicycle tire)
1 lila Mandarine (purple mandarin orange, but so much cooler as it rhymes in German) 
1 S-Bahn Haltestelle (S-Bahn station) 
1 schlecht gelaunter Bär (bear in a bad mood – not something I would want with me in a confined space over long distances) 
1 Kuschelautomat (vending machine for cuddles)
1 Flamme (flame) 
1 Stück Grass (blade of grass)    

In case there are any inventors out there with inventor’s block, might I suggest a Kuschelautomat?