One of my favorite public transit experiences I’ve had was when I was taking the bus home towards the end of my first semester of college. I had a philosophy essay due soon, so I was trying to work on the essay on my iPhone.

Things were going pretty well, when I heard some other people on the bus start talking. I was trying to focus on the essay but I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. A young girl, probably in second or third grade, was talking to her mom about another girl in her school who she was having some trouble with. It seemed like this other girl had teased her and had been mean to her, but was now unexpectedly being nice.

It was an interesting conversation, and it was even more interesting given that I was writing an essay about what “good” means and what constitutes an “intrinsically good activity”. Hearing about someone whose actions were morally uncertain while trying to write about morals was definitely not what I expected when I got on the bus to go home. But that’s one thing that makes New York (and its public transportation) special. You never know who you’ll meet and what you might hear.