Bus Boy

So there I was standing at the bus stop after work when I noticed two young lads walking down the road, they were probably around eleven or twelve years old. The bigger of the two had darkish hair and was dressed in dark clothes and in all honesty was unremarkable but I particularly noticed the smaller one as he looked very smart in a classic neat and tidy way, he could have stepped from the page of a clothing catalogue.

He did not reflect a particular era and could have slotted into several decades without looking out of place. Well-scrubbed and well-pressed, neat short blonde hair with a side parting with almost a brylcreem look about it, a red jumper and tan chino type trousers. In fact I have an old 50’s box game that has a picture of a boy not dissimilar on the lid: except, of course, back then he would probably still be wearing short trousers!

He was one of those children who you can look at and you can really see the adult that will emerge. Sometimes you can look at a baby or a toddler and see the child they will be or you can see the adult in the child.

They seem to be set or fixed from a very early age in terms of what they will look like and what their personality will be like when fully matured, as if the dominant genes are really in charge right from the get go.

For other children they seem to be subject to a turbulent metamorphosis in which the different traits emerge and submerge during the growing process and it is very hard to predict what the finished product will be.

There is something to be said for both scenarios, when you have a child who has very definite physical and personality traits from the beginning it is great if you consider them to be positive because you don’t have the depth of concern as to how they are going to turn out. Obviously not so good if it is clear from the beginning that your child is not the genetic mix you were hoping for!!!

If, however, your child, like most, is that fascinating blend where it is not clear what genes or personality traits are eventually going to dominate you have the eternal hope, when going through the bad patches, that it will all come good in the end!!!

Anyway back to the bus stop boys, so as they strolled towards the bus stop the lad in the red jumper dropped the bottle of orange fizzy pop that he was carrying, it was plastic so it did not break as it hit the pavement and then it rolled for a fair distance. He scooped it back up and the liquid inside really had that all shook up look!

He and his friend came to look at the bus timetable and his friend jumped on a bus, whilst he continued to study the timetable..

By this time the lad was sucking and chewing on the outside of the pop bottle and I found myself surprised at his behaviour and realised it was because value judgements had slipped in, as they do with all of us all the time, and my expectation of him did not match his actions.

At this point O’Seedy was quite concerned about two issues

·         the fact it had just rolled on the very, very filthy pavement and what deadly germs the child was ingesting.

·         that all of us standing at the bus stop were going to be treated to a Grand Prix moment, only with very sticky fizzy orange instead of champagne!

As it happened he, still sucking and chewing his bottle and apparently uncorned about anything, turned and walked back the way he came!