Heard on the Ashland Bus

Around 2 this afternoon, the package-laden crowd on the Ashland bus got a good laugh just before we went under the viaduct at 49th.

A fiftyish mom in a pink jacket and white sweats was sitting with her twenty-something daughter, wearing a black jacket, jeans and black boots. A man selling DVDs on the bus was seated nearby.

"Do you have Endless Christmas?" the mother asked.

"No," he answered, then rattled off similar DVDs he did have, but she had all of them already. Then he turned to the daughter: "Alvin and the Chipmunks?"

"No way!" she said, offended.

"For kids?" he suggested.

This led her to explain that the lady in pink was her mother and all her children were grown.

"For your kids?" he asked.

"I ain't got none," she said, rather emphatically.

"Want some help with that?" he asked.

"Hell, no!"

All of us within earshot cracked up at that. It put the merry in Merry Christmas today.