She didn’t ask the old man on the bus to give up his seat for her, but he did anyway. He says it’s because he could tell she wanted to sit next to her friends and talk to them. He was young once too, you know.

But it’s not easy for her to talk to her friends because the old man has an agenda. He wants to talk to these three girls.

When he finds out that they’re seniors, he asks about their plans after high school. Community college. The old man has a problem with this. He’s never met these girls before, but he has it in his mind that they can do better than community college and he doesn’t just keep it there, in his mind. He says it.

Don’t they want to make something of themselves? They could be doctors or lawyers if they went to a university. They could go far in life.

They’re not having it. They don’t want to be doctors or lawyers and they don’t want to be lectured. It’s Friday afternoon and this old man is trying to give them some B.S. life lesson, and they’re not having it.

He’s careful to remind them that he’s older and wiser. They tell him in no uncertain terms that they don’t care. But he says he’s got a story for them. He tells them a tale from days of yore about three friends, not too different from the three of them. One of the friends wanted to make a pact. He swore that they would all become doctors someday. His other two friends looked at him like he was crazy, and said “Man, how we gonna be doctors?” But you know what? Now they’re all doctors.

They tell him what they told him before: we don’t want to be doctors.

He’s not saying they have to be doctors. They can be whatever they want, that’s what he’s trying to tell them. They say they already know that. He tells them that if they go to community college, they won’t be able to achieve their full potential.

The one he gave his seat to says that’s why you go to community college for two years and then transfer to a university. The girl on the other end of the bench seat adds that you can just go straight out of community college to a decent job. It may not be a university, but it’s still college. The girl sitting in the middle doesn’t say anything. She looks at the old man as if she’s taking what he says at least partially seriously. He doesn’t notice.

He wants them to promise him, before he gets off this bus, that they will look into four-year colleges. They already have! The girl to whom he gave his seat speaks for all of them. They know what they want to do. They’re seniors and they know what they’re going to do and some old man on the bus isn’t about to change their minds.

Who does he think he is anyway? Where does he get off talking to them like they’re little children? Maybe he’s been around the block a few times, but that doesn’t mean he can just come out of nowhere like this and tell them what they ought to do with their lives. His belief that he can negates any knowledge he may happen to impart.

What’s he think is gonna happen when he steps off this bus? Are the girls going to give what he’s said some real serious thought, maybe think about changing their plans? The two on either end of the bench seat mock the old man and conclude that he’s either on his way to a drug counseling appointment or jail. That was just a show he was putting on. He’s neither a doctor or a lawyer, so what give him the right to tell them that they need to aim higher than community college? At least they’re going to college.

How presumptuous of him to come and give them this wizened old man-spiel. This guy’s just another sham, another grown-up trying to make like he’s learned something from all his years on earth. What’s he learned? What’s he got to teach? Seems like all he knows how to do is to alienate the youth.

Now that he’s gotten off the bus, all three girls start talking to each other, like he said he was giving her his seat so that they could do.