Because of the Pulaski Day parade, the buses were all rerouted Sunday. I figured they would be, because in Whole Foods I saw a bunch of respectable White ladies in multicolored Polish maiden outfits, draped in ribbons, grabbing a snack. If you see people in costume in Philly, you figure there’s a parade.

I met up with my adult kid and we walked down 19th Street along the regular bus route to Center City, to grab coffee and go to the bookstore. Where I live, you can walk to a lot of things even when the buses aren’t running.

Then we headed over to catch a bus home. We had to walk a ways.

That was because it wasn’t the usual detour up 16th Street. No. They had to mess with a perfectly good normal routine. Because there was apparently more than one parade going on.

Through a combination of reading the Transit App, listening to a loud know-it-all on the street, and asking a bus driver, we figured out we could catch our buses at Broad and Arch. That’s a normal stop for my bus, actually.

The route went haywire after that.

When I got on, the bus driver promptly announced the detour, and a whole bunch of people got off because they weren’t going there. I took the high seat behind the driver, which is cozy and sort of private, and watched people dither and scramble. We turned up Broad Street, but then turned east a few blocks up, which terrified a bunch of the people who were still on the bus, because the 48 bus should be going west and then north.

“This is how it goes,” explained the woman nearest to me to an anxious passenger.

I agreed. “It goes around, but then it comes back.”

“It does a loop-de-loop,” said the woman, and we started chatting because we were bus friends now.

She had her grocery cart with her, and said she had made sure to get out of the house early because she knew the buses would be screwed up. She was all finished with her shopping, and was going to go home and take a nap.

The bus went around, and then came back, just as we had said, and most of the people on the bus went back to staring into the distance or at their phones.

I said I was retired, so I could do my grocery shopping during the week, and she approved heartily. She told me all the things I could do now that I was retired, like have a nap after I did my grocery shopping. She was very helpful. She obviously assumed I had just retired recently because I don’t look 74, and I didn’t correct her, because I like having a good conversation on the bus.

Two old men were having a beef, meanwhile. One of them was one of those chatty guys who carries his whole life with him and who talks a blue streak. The other was a stocky baldheaded man sitting in the back of the bus, who told the chatty guy, “You better shut your mouth, old man, or I will beat you.” The chatty guy looked as if he hadn’t taken in any of that.

The old stocky guy came up to where the chatty guy was, to be more clear and convenient, and berated him some more.

The lady and I continued our conversation about groceries, errands, and retirement, a little louder to be heard over the angry geezers (though we both rolled our eyes at them). She took her mask down to emphasize a couple of points, and I saw she was missing a couple of teeth. I too am missing a tooth, but it’s in the back and I just got a bridge at the dentist.

It’s surprising what you can eat when you have missing teeth.

We were not disturbed by the battling elders at all, though they were plenty mad at each other. I think they were just having a bus conversation of sorts.

The bus finally swung back onto its regular route and I got off at my home stop, saying goodbye to the lady. The two old guys were still in the front of the bus, ignoring each other pointedly.

I never did see any of the Pulaski Day Parade, but I did see the ladies in ribbons, and I did have a nice hangout with my kid and a chat on the bus, so that was good enough.