Backdated from Tuesday, April 19, 2005 10am-ish (mined from paper journal.)

Still on the bus (through Rosario De La Frontera?).

¨Will you watch her?¨ The barely spoken implication as mama heads to
the lower level washroom.

Baby, alone across the aisle, almost immediately starts crying.

I, who during the 15 seconds of calm between these incidents could
think of no action more practical than pulling out my camera to snap a
shot of the cute unattended bundle of joy, am left unsure of what to
do next.

The effects of ¨shh, there, there¨ are intermittent at best.

Whimpers turn to wails. After about a minute, people are poking their
heads out of their seats, straining their eyes to the front of the bus
to lay guilt-tripping stares at the noisy culprit - or, rather, her
tender – me?? A man gestures that I should pick her up. Like, duh...

I am suddenly swept off into an awkward moment of hesitation, likely
the result of years of social-cultural conditioning of the Canadian
variety, which places heavy restrictions on the elsewhere simple act
of grabbing someone else's kid. The amplitude of continues to
increase, as I reason that, in this situation, permission is not a
factor in picking up and consoling the screaming blob across the
aisle. Luckily, at that instant, mama reappears, teet under shirt, to
save the day.