This time, she wasn't there.

Yesterday, after work, I ran to the Bart train. What propelled me to be so time aware is the schedule's fault, the next train headed in my direction was 14 minutes later and underground it gets so hot. While on the stairs, I saw the doors of the train open, I saw the shuffling of people, and I became brave! And just when I threw my arm out to allow my entrance, I found that the doors don't have a motion sensor and closed as my yelp desperately extracted my embarrassed arm out from the moving train. I was forced to stand for another 14 minutes underground with a station full of people who watched this occurrence.

When I was in 5th grade, I was an expert bus commuter. To walk to school was manageable, but undesirable and at 11, a sign that perhaps your parents had no money.  Taking the bus was socially understood to be cool, because you could look like you just hated waiting for it and you didn't really give a shit about stuff. The older kids held cigarettes in their hand and carved graffiti in the walls, as I held my thumb, patiently waiting.  I was always early (in part because I had severe trouble reading the time, even at 11 and even more so, calculating how long approximately 30 feet might take). The bus finally arrived and I approached the post where all the schedules were listed, adjusting my square backpack, maybe even my shirt.

Typically, when the doors opened, a whole bus full of 18 year old street kids would flood out, immediately lighting another cigarette or pouring beer over their spiked hair to freeze it into place right there on the street. So I learned to allow them ample time to get out of the bus, even though the front was reserved for paying customer's like me. But this time, as the rebels were coming out, so began the other kids' cattle-ing toward the bus. I waited my turn, hiked the two stairs, paid 1 German Mark and then experienced a nightmare. The abrasive shoving and pushing somehow forced me off of the bus.  I knew I had to work for this ride, but all I could do was  hold my composure as I felt myself nearing closer to the post.  I shouted to the Bus driver that I paid my Mark and therefore had every right to ride (I also did not have a second Mark for the next Bus) unless he was prepared to return my money to me.  I felt the laughter as I felt the shoving. The Driver said, "If you can get in, you can ride," and I took the invitation.  I squeezed in, and there was sweat underneath my shirt. But, when the doors closed, they closed on my square backpack. Several times.  I felt the thump rattle my books. People were aggravated with my menial cause which was the cause of their delay, and the driver instructed me to exit the Bus, there was no room.  He did not apologize nor did he return my Mark.

I had lost the battle. I had felt the shame. I had no money. It would have been slightly o.k. if my P.E. bag didn't get shuffled between the knees of teenage angst and was sadly tied by a long string to my wrist. I didn't realize that we were separated by the door until the Bus started moving. My legs began jogging along with it, as I was frantically pulling the string of my bag, crying so quickly and hysterically, words failed me. The insider's enjoyed this show but I didn't care about my money or their laughter, I wanted my P.E. shoes and my wrist hurt.

The only thing I can remember at this point, is that my big sister came running, who was one of the cool kids attending a school designed to foster the nurses and other respectable careers of the German economy.  She, perhaps, cried too. She, perhaps, felt the embarrassment as well. Her backpack flew off of her shoulders and it felt like instantly she was next to me, yanked on my wrist and cursed the entire bus. The bag rudely flew out from the knees and onto us, and I fell. Luckily, this is where the bus actually drove off.  Harshly, this is where I wanted to melt into the concrete. Adnana picked me up. Held my hand with one and picked up her backpack with the other.  I think I cried the whole way home.