A twentysomething woman and her kindergarten-age daughter follow a twentysomething man onto the bus. They sit in the forward-facing seats across from his, daughter near the window, mother near the aisle, facing the object of her pursuit.

Twentysomething woman, speaking loudly enough for everyone on the bus to hear: “I just don’t understand it. Guys are always trying to talk to me. Pretty much everyone wants to be with me, and I turn them down just to see the looks on their faces. Now I’m giving you the opportunity, and you don’t want it.”

The twentysomething man sits silently, looking somewhat embarrassed. The woman continues.

TSW: “I told my cousin you turned me down, and she was like, ‘Now that’s a first.’ For real, though, all kinds of dudes want to be with me. Basketball players have tried to holler, rappers try to get at me…”

She continues in this vein for several more minutes, until the man mumbles something unintelligible.

TSW: “What? Why can’t you tell me?” She gestures toward her daughter, who has witnessed the entire scene. “Is it her?”

A young woman, to a male friend: “I got two new diagnoses, on top of the three I already have: OCD and agoraphobia.”

Male friend: “Really? But you seem so normal.”

Young woman: “That’s the problem; most crazies do.”

Back of the bus: A group of teenage boys is antagonizing a fortysomething man dressed in work clothes and boots.

Boys’ ringleader: “Man, I make more in an hour than you probably make in a whole day.”

Fortysomething man: “I make 54 bucks an hour.”

BR: “Seriously? What do you do?”

FM: “Electrician. Journeyman.”

Random boy: “You work every day?”

FM: “Seven days a week.”

BR, calculating: “Dang–you’re pulling in some serious cheese.”

The bus reaches fortysomething man’s stop, and he gets off.

BR, to his friends: “I’d stop hustling for a job that paid like that.”