Bus rule #1:
If your morning bus to work is late–really late–and you wait for what seems like forever (hours surely), and when it finally arrives, it is bursting-at-the-seams crowded, so packed with people that you can remain upright without holding on (if, that is, you don’t mind making a few friends on the ride), you will be rewarded, upon disembarking, with the sight of another bus, the same route number, but articulated this time, whizzing past your crowded bus–completely empty.

Bus rule #2:
If there is a person on your bus who is behaving oddly (speaking to an imaginary friend or prophesying the earth’s imminent demise or removing required articles of clothing), everyone else on the bus will stare straight ahead (or out the window, or at their books) and pretend that the person in question is not acting a stone fool–unless, that is, some of those “everyone elses” are the masters of public humiliation we know as teenage girls.