PARK CITY — CALL it Sociology 101, otherwise known as a shuttle bus trip during the Sundance Film Festival.
One or two bus trips can reveal how, at least during the festival, our priorities are way out of whack.
On Friday a group waiting at a stop near Main Street debated what actor Amy Poehler's response should have been to a fan who shouted, "I love you!" Poehler replied, "I like you, too!" The debate ended with a reasonable young man surmising that Poehler must have some special reverence for the word "love" and that she uses it selectively.
If you're lucky enough to ride a bus alone with the driver, ask that person about a memorable Sundance story. The driver I spoke to summed up all Park City people as "nuts" and he used one woman as an example. It seems a pretty lady got very ugly when she was unable to navigate her Porsche SUV out of a parking lot and was unable to get the driver to move his bus. By the end, she had every available law enforcement agency at her disposal to help her with, what else, backing her expensive car out of the parking lot. The driver did not get an apology for being the sole recipient of her venom that day.
Loud talkers are common on buses during Sundance.
One woman Friday complained how she couldn't get cell phone service while on the bus and that she couldn't get her DVD player to work back at her hotel. That prompted a passenger listening in to audibly tell someone next to her that she had to hold down the power button for at least two seconds before the TV in her hotel room worked.
Those poor, poor women.
By the way, French men with thick accents come off sounding way snooty while loud talking on a shuttle bus at Sundance. Precocious pre-teens traveling unaccompanied by parents on a shuttle at the festival also project an almost suffocating obnoxious air in an over-stuffed, slow-moving bus.
A bus ride in and around Park City in January is also a reminder of how to dress.
The riders on one half of a bus Friday let out a collective "Oooooh!" as a young man running for a bus jumped over a frozen snowdrift, only to land on a frozen stretch of concrete. Wearing a pair of black dress shoes (with no obvious tread) and a light red jacket, he ended up flat on his back as his feet flew out from under him. Adding insult to injury and embarrassment, he missed the bus.
Which brings up another reminder.
Don't try chasing a stuffed bus down a street or pounding on the doors, pleading to be let in from the freezing cold. Drivers will only pull over and open the doors at a designated spot. So, don't take it personally, cast dirty looks or shout obscenities at drivers who don't stop for YOU.
If you remember one thing only about taking a shuttle during Sundance, then let it be to tell a driver, "Thank you." If you have any money to spare, put a buck in the plastic tip box next to the drivers.
Those two things alone may just help you recast your priorities and, by way of your own generosity or thoughtfulness, reinvigorate your perception mankind or at least people in Park City during Sundance.
E-mail: saspeckman@yahoo.com