💬 People pretend not to see old people standing on the bus

Rant time. Yesterday an old man got on my 7:48 bus, maybe 75, with a stick. Nobody moved. I counted. 9 people sitting near him. 6 on their phones, 2 staring out of the window like it was a film. The 9th was a woman reading a paperback. I'll give her that, she didn't even pretend. I stood up and gave him my seat, the one by the window. He sat down like his legs were relieved. He said thank you about 4 times. I said, sir, it's okay. He said, no, thank you, properly. It felt like I'd given him a kidney. All I did was stand for 20 minutes. A teenager in the next seat finally looked up from his phone. He looked at the man, then at me. Then back at the phone. I wanted to say something. I came up with 4 things and all of them were rude. Here's what I don't get. If you've seen him, you've seen him. Looking at a video doesn't unsee him. My father told me to stand when an older person walks into any room. Doesn't matter whose house. Nobody on a bus in Dallas will tell you off for sitting. You can sit all day and say nothing. So it only works if you do it yourself, and plenty of people don't bother. The old man got off at the hospital stop. He waved at me through the window. I waved back like an idiot. The driver waited until he was completely off before closing the door. That was a nice touch. Not everybody on that bus was useless. My seat was free again when I walked back. Nobody had taken it. Small mercies.

I've stopped trying to catch their eye. I just say sit here, uncle, out loud, to nobody in particular. Said loudly, the whole row suddenly remembers it has eyes.

Watched a young guy pretend to sleep the moment an elderly woman got on our bus near Koti last week, phone still lit up in his hand the whole time.