A Bus Story

A story about a bus and taking the bus.

Jessica and Sam waited together for the bus. The weather was fine. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t very cold, and there wasn’t any rain.

“The weather is fine, at least,” Sam said. “Not very cold and there isn’t any rain.”

“I know,” said Jessica. “I’m standing here with you. I know what the weather is — not very cold, no rain. I’m experiencing the same weather.”

“OK, Jesus,” Sam said.

“Why do you feel like you have to tell me what the weather is when we’re both standing right here?” asked Jessica. “Do you think I don’t know? You think my nervous system doesn’t work, or whatever? My neurons, or whatever makes us feel things? I don’t know what it is exactly, but — OK, big shot, I’ll look it up.”

“You don’t have t — ”

“I’ll look up what makes us feel things like weather, OK big shot? Mr. Big Shot. OK, here we go. I’m Googling it now. ‘w-h-a-t m-a-k-e-s u-s f-e-e-l t-h-i-n-g-s l-i-k-e w-e-a-t-h-e-r.’”

“I know how to spell ‘what makes us feel things like weather,’ you don’t have to spell it out for me. We both know how to sp — ”

“Don’t try to turn this on me,” Jessica said.

“Whatever.”

“‘Whatever.’” Jessica sighed and fiddled with her iPhone, squinting her eyes at the screen. “OK, it’s loading,” she said. She kept looking at her phone for a while. “I’m trying to find what it is.” Sam watched as Jessica touched her phone, scrolling through Google results. He was thinking like, when is this bus gonna get here. “OK,” Jessica said, eventually. “It seems like it’s sensory neurons.”

“OK.”

“‘OK?’ That’s it? Do you know what sensory neurons are?”

“No. I mean, sort of. I can guess — ”

“Aren’t you going to ask what they are? I looked it up. This is what it says they are when I Google it: ‘Sensory neurons are nerve cells within the nervous system responsible for converting external stimuli from the organism’s environment into internal electrical impulses. For example, some sensory neurons respond to tactile stimuli and can activate motor neurons in order to achieve muscle contraction.’”

“OK. Thanks,” Sam said, looking down the street to see if the bus was coming yet and it wasn’t. “That’s the Google clip, or whatever?”

“The featured snippet, yeah.”

“I read those were racist. Or, maybe not racist, but I don’t know, just wrong. They say Warren Harding was a member of the KKK, I think, and that some other presidents were members of the KKK.”

“Yeah right.”

“And that Barack Obama is King of the United States.”

“You sound insane. It just tells you whatever the answer is. Or what day Mother’s Day is, or whatever.”

“I’ll show you.” Sam got out his phone and tried to show Jessica what he meant about featured snippets, Googling “who is king of the usa.”

“Fuck, well. I don’t know why it’s not working, but you can see that it used to say it. The first article is about how it used to say it.”

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” said Jessica, turning her back towards him.

“I guess they fixed it! I don’t know!”

Jessica would never believe Sam about the featured snippets now.

“Why are you trying to tell me some shit about featured snippets when you don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about?” Jessica asked. “Because you’re embarrassed you didn’t know about sensory neurons, and that I sort of did? Well, I’m SOO-RRRY, Sam, but — ”

“I KNOW about featured snippets! Come on! You can see from the first search result that it USED to say that! And the Breitbart link!”

“Oh, so you read Breitbart now? That’s your source? Breitbart, OK, great, great source, Sam. Sam Bannon. I guess you’re Sam Bannon now. I guess that’s your name.”

“Oh, my god.”

“‘OH, MY GOD!’”

A few minutes passed in silence, with no sign of the bus. A wry smile formed on Jessica’s face.

“The weather is fine, at least,” she said.

The couple laughed and embraced, because they were very afraid of being alone.

The End

ADDENDUM: The bus came later. It went down a different avenue than it usually did because of construction, so Sam and Jessica ended up having to walk a little bit out of their way once they got off.