Back of the bus

Every school year begins with a fresh display of amateurish behavior that demonstrates predictable naivete. 

The soundtrack to the first few weeks of the semester is one of jarring ambulance sirens, where alcohol neophytes are frantically rushed from the dorms to the hospital.
New students stroll the unfamiliar streets twirling lanyards while cocksure upperclassmen yell “freshmen” from their speeding cars. Freshmen get ripped-off by paying California prices for Indiana pot.

Fortunately, most annoyances recede relatively quickly, except for one: students who won’t move to the back of the bus.

If you think I am referring to the racial injustices of the past, you’re way off base. I’m talking about people who, when stepping onto a crowded bus with dozens of people waiting behind them, stop moving and stand glassy-eyed only a few feet from the entrance.

Have these people never encountered the mysterious marvel that is a public bus? Do their brains lapse into unthinking bliss when they enter the bus’s breathtaking realm?
For whatever reason, an alarming number of students simply cannot comprehend the fact that they need to move to the back to make room for everyone else.
 
But if I were to place this problem’s blame solely on bus inexperience, there would have to be quite an overabundance of severely coddled bus-virgins on campus. Somehow, I don’t think that’s the case.

Here is what I think happens the majority of the time. 

When a freshman arrives at college, he or she will most likely immediately feel a sense of carefree invincibility. Not the leaping off buildings and downing kerosene kind of invincibility, but the free from authority and embracing independence invincibility.  
But for some, these natural feelings evolve into something more conceited and self-centered. 

Soon you’re lifting your outfits right out of an Ed Hardy ad while sporting an ego that’s laughably transparent to everyone but yourself.

But you have to keep up this charade. You’ve already convinced yourself that an attitude of narcissism and carelessness is your one-way ticket to complete acceptance and total admiration. 

And that’s when you step on a bus.

If your mind is actually focused on the present instead of pondering who’s working the door at the frat house that night, you might actually realize that you’re on a bus with other people.

Some small, unused corner of your mind is crying out “keep moving, it’s the right thing to do,” but you know not to listen. 

Acquiescing to a situation that demands you relinquish your self-absorbed, alpha-male (or female) status goes against every commandment in your play book.

So you play dumb until the bus driver has to literally point out the complete obvious: “Move to the back of the bus so other people can get on.” You begrudgingly obey, confident no one has caught on to your brilliant strategy.

This theory might be so out there that 9/11 Truthers  might sneeze at it, but what are the other explanations? 

Complete ignorance?

Constant forgetfulness?

No. I think the bus issue stems from the deepest and darkest regions of the human psyche, and until we can understand ourselves better, this problem will forever haunt our public transportation system.