Groundhog Day

Sometimes I feel like my life is like Bill Murray’s in Groundhog Day. Every afternoon I catch the chicken bus from the terminal. I wait about five to ten minutes for the right bus to arrive. While I’m waiting, other buses drive pass and try and convince me that I should take their bus to say “La Mesilla (the border)” even though I know I’m waiting for the bus that says “Hospital y El Centro”. It is also the bus with the most “bling bling” and or the one that is a former U.S. school bus, given the “Nashville School Bus” written along the side. Then the bus arrives and I usually take a seat on the right hand side because it has a pretty view of the mountains. Next, my favorite part: first the younger man walks through the bus selling gum. He leaves, and the next man in his mid 30’s gets on the bus and sells “mints”. Maybe one person will buy his mints. Next is the best character. Old man selling helados in a small Coleman ice chest. He yells out “helados” so fast that all I catch is the emphasis on helaDOS . Finally, a middle age man gets on the bus attempting to sell the local newspapers. He starts shouting at the top of his lungs a headline from the newspaper, usually something about people dying or anything morbid that will get people’s attention.  He seems to be the most profitable. The bus usually starts driving away while newspaper dude is trying to make his final sales. He jumps off the moving bus and were off. And this is what happens every afternoon on my bus ride-always these four men, always in that order.