Have a lunch date uptown, East Side. My route begins in the West Village. In the spirit of discovery, I decide to try a different subway line to get there. I complete the first part of the northerly journey on the unfamiliar line, exit by the stairs, to catch a crosstown bus. The bus I want has to travel West to East through the Park. I arrive at the bus stop and standing there are dispensing machines, unknown to me. Although I speak and read English like a native speaker, the signage is not registering. I can’t figure out what is intended for me to do. I wait for a bus to arrive, so I can ask the driver. When I pose the question of “Do I have to have a separate ticket from that machine?” and with his reply of “Yes”, he asks me where I am going, he tells me that I need to be on the opposite side of the street. Thanking him, I cross over and come to stand in front of a new bank of machines. Eventually, I take a gamble, insert my metro card and am given a paper receipt, something to which the driver had referred, I remember vaguely. I join the throng waiting for a bus to arrive, traveling in the direction I need to go. The bus arrives. All the doors pop open along the side of this double sized bus, and as one has a ticket, one may board through any of the three entrances. I choose the middle one. I don’t know if I am supposed to walk up the aisle and offer the ticket to this new driver, but I don’t see anyone else who boarded with me at the same door making a forward move, so I hang on to the bar above my head. While standing beside a row of seats, thinking about the ticket in my hand, someone tugs at my coat tail. The bus is full, and I assume that someone is going to offer me their seat, I am standing right over them. Imagine my utter dumbfoundedness – as I look at the smiling face scanning mine, it is one of the persons I am on my way to meet for lunch. Now tell me, out of all the variables that are at play…. how did I end up towering over her on the same bus.