Like a bus on the Boulder Turnpike in a snowstorm

On the morning of Monday, January 28, snowfall far exceeded prediction, turning the DenverBoulder Turnpike into a twenty-seven-mile-long laboratory in social psychology.

In more conventional laboratories, experimentation requires researchers to declare the risks that human subjects may face, to secure the signed permission of those participants, and to set forward the terms of confidentiality. Since that protocol was not in effect on that wintry morning, I am under no constraints in reporting my findings.

Determined to meet a treasured friend for lunch, I had settled in to wait for a bus. When the bus finally arrived, it turned out to be three hours late.

In other words, the social psychology experiment was off and running.

Many of the passengers who boarded with me had been waiting out in the cold a lot longer than I had. But all greeted the bus driver with appreciation for his persistence.

And, unknown to any of us, just two or three stops away, one of the goofiest people in the Denver Metro Area was awaiting our arrival.

She did not, for a moment, try to conceal her goofiness. As she got on the bus, she said to the driver, “How long will it take you to get to Denver?”

Those of us seated near the front of the bus all knew that the driver had had a terrible morning, spending most of his westward journey trapped in motionless traffic. With this empathetic knowledge in play in our minds, this woman’s question initially seemed intended to invite our hilarity and merriment.

The driver patiently told his interrogator that he would do his best to get us to Denver, but there was no way he could know what we would face in the way of continued snowfall, black ice, or accidents.

This reply raised the prospective passenger’s imperial character traits to a fevered pitch.

“You must tell me how long it will take,” she said, wondrously indifferent to the fact that she was keeping a vehicle-full of people from going anywhere, “because I will not get on this bus if the trip is going to go on forever.”

At this point, my conditioned reflexes as a public speaker kicked in.

“Lady,” I said, “he cannot possibly answer your question. We have no evidence that he is a prophet. But if he actually does have the power to predict the future, we have some questions of greater consequence we would like to ask him.”

My fellow passengers and I then began drafting the questions, a good share of them involving government shutdowns and walls, that we would like to take up with a certified prophet.

Happily, this shift in the course of public discourse seemed to anger the woman. She got off the bus, leaving the driver free to complete his victory in the charm contest.

“I’m really not a prophet,” he told us. “I flunked my mind-reading class.”

I didn’t do very well in my own mind-reading class, but this experiment gave me a revealing glimpse into the workings of human nature.

One breathtakingly selfcentered person can indeed exercise power over a bus full of good-hearted souls. But if those people pull together, the bus moves on. The roads clear, and the yearned-for lunch with the treasured friend starts precisely on time.

Patty Limerick is faculty director and chair of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.