Most of the things people leave behind on the bus are things they don’t want: empty bottles, grocery bags, pieces of paper. Once I found a small pile of bones left over from chicken wings carefully balanced on the edge of the window. I thought about sliding open the window and throwing them out but there are some things even I won’t pick up, and I didn’t want to risk throwing chicken wings into the windshield of an oncoming car. A bus driver once told me that she had a kid who threw a milkshake into the open sunroof of a car in the next lane which I thought took some amazing skill but was also a criminal waste of a milkshake, but that’s another story.
Just a few days ago I got on the bus and went straight to the back just as I always do, especially at this time of year because the motor is in the back and it’s the warmest place to sit. And I found this:
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At first I thought it was a child’s school assignment. When I was in school we had to do things like this all the time because being able to cut pictures of stuff out of magazines and paste them to a piece of posterboard was a valuable skill that, like the quadratic formula, I have never once needed in my adult life. But then I looked at it more closely.
It looked like a shopping guide. Someone had been calculating and comparing prices. They wanted a cell phone, a bicycle, a small motorcycle, and a Nerf gun. I couldn’t tell whether the pictures really matched the exact items or if they were just guides.
What I really wanted to know, though, was, who were they? Who made this thing and left it behind? Was it a Christmas gift guide? Maybe it was and with the holidays over they didn’t need it anymore. That’s the best possibility. The worst possibility is they were a student and this was an assignment that they accidentally left behind. If that’s the case they probably ended up getting a F on it, although if they had turned it in the grade wouldn’t be much better. That’s some really sloppy work there. Don’t they teach kids the proper way to stick pictures to a piece of posterboard anymore?
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Very interesting post. The whole milkshake thing is pretty disturbing. What an atrocious thing to lose a milkshake in such a way! Ah, the potential it could have had if hadn’t left us so early *sigh*. Hey, check out my new blog for some humour and maybe stories of icecream genocide.
I believe milkshake abuse is a federal crime in some states.
Honestly, I find this absolutely heartwarming. I can imagine the young hands that cut out the pictures and carefully calculated the discounts and it makes me smile. I don’t work directly with students anymore, and that’s what I miss the most about my new job.
There’s something heartwarming to me too about the thought that it might have been some young person who put together that board, possibly one was wishing for the items pictured. I hope all their wishes come true.
Maybe a ‘Vision Board’ from someone who is trying to manifest those things from the universe. Surely everyone knows about ‘Vision Boards’ – it’s easier than working for a living (apparently).
I know about ‘Vision Boards’ and if I know about them everyone does, although I didn’t think they were for material things but rather personal goals. But if those are things they want then I hope their visions come true.
I wish I could have been on that bus, too.
Riding the bus with someone else is always better than riding alone.