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Compartment 14B

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.

2005-10-31 - 2:26 p.m.

Today two women offered me seats on the bus. This made me realize that, on the rare* occasion I�ve been offered a seat, it�s always, always, always been women that did the offering. The first one timidly asked if I wanted a seat and I jauntily replied that I was fine, but the second one stood up and brooked no argument with a �Sit down! I�m getting off soon anyway.�

I found out after the fact that she, in fact, was 3 months pregnant herself. In the few minutes we chatted she mentioned that hardly anyone gave her a seat in Ottawa during her last pregnancy, but that in Europe men had sprang up from their seats for her the instant she set foot on public transportation. I noted my observation that it had always been women who�d offered their seats to me and you know what? In the 9 months of her last pregnancy, one man had offered her a seat once, and that was in the last week she worked before going on maternity leave.

What, exactly, is up with that?

I�m not here to man-bash at all, and have always appreciated it when members of the opposite sex (or members of the same sex for that matter) have shown me courtesy, which I acknowledge has been many times over the years. But why is it that men in Ottawa, so far, have sat mutely in the Priority Seating areas on all the buses I�ve been on while women have offered to give up their seats? This is a simple fact. And I have no answer to this question. Many men I know would protest that they�d give up their seat in a heartbeat in a similar situation, and I believe them, yet that hasn�t been my experience with men on the bus who are strangers to me.

A (seemingly unrelated) confession: When I was little � maybe 6 or 7 � I went to Scotland to visit my grandparents. Back in those days it seemed like it was easy to find change lying around. People didn�t always take their quarters from payphone change-returns, and there were always coins to be found in supermarkets near the cash registers. When my sister and I were waiting near the check-out at a grocery store in Scotland, an elderly woman dropped a couple of small coins. She looked down, looked at us, and looked down again, then left. As soon as she was gone my sister and I pounced gleefully on the change, then we dashed to tell our parents about how this old woman had dropped it and just left it there. To this day I remember the guilt I felt when my horrified father explained to us that some elderly people just couldn�t stoop down to pick up things like small coins from the floor and that we should have picked it up for her. Did I say remember the guilt? Heck, I still feel guilty, even though I know I just didn�t know any better. Still, that�s the kind of basic courtesy I want to instill in my kids. They may need some lessons along the way, but I still hope they�ll get it eventually, like I think I did.

One theme I�ve really noticed repeating in my writing lately, as I�ve struggled to figure out what values to pass on to my children, is respect. I�d like to think that any child I raise would give up a seat on the bus to someone who needed it more than they do.

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Clearly it�s rare because I�m still so slender (for an almost-6-month pregnant person) that it must not be obvious that I�m even pregnant. And if you buy that, I�ve got this great bridge for sale�

Seriously though, some outfits hide it more than others and with a couple of bulky, fall-chill-combating layers on � including a coat or a jacket � it�s not always easy to tell. In just pants and a shirt, however, there�s no mistaking my gravid state.

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