Three quotidian moments

I'm driving back from Boston on the pike through thick traffic and notice a tour bus pulled to the side with engine trouble. Its passengers, very young adults, are scattered on the green hillside. I notice something odd about them-- they're all facing forward looking straight ahead, not talking to each other. Are they being punished? Are they military school recruits? Then I realize each one is talking on a cellphone!! Talking on cellphones instead of to each other!! What a world.

I'm driving up Maple Street in Springfield while a young Latino father pushes a bright and entirely PINK stroller down the street with his (almost undoubtedly) female infant bundled inside. I wonder if he is aware of its PINKNESS and if so, what if anything he feels about it. I wonder how long girls born to working class families will be stuck in the endless pink and lavender of Wal-Mart and K-Mart.

I'm driving down Hancock Street moving slowly toward the State Street light. To my left is a vacant lot where once a building burned to the ground, now framed between the two remaining apartment buildings. A man and his chubby three year old son stood in the lot, each with a golf club, and the father was instructing his son how to hit a ball invisible in the gravely grass. The club was nearly twice as tall as the child and completely unwieldy in his hands. Did I catch the father peeking to see if the drivers thought his son was as cute as he did? (The answer is yes.)