How I Met My Best Friend at a Bus Stop

Eleven years ago, waiting for the 38 bus in the rain, a woman next to me sneezed seven times in a row. I said "Bless you" after each one, getting louder every time. By the seventh, we were both crying with laughter.

Her name is Ruth. We discovered we lived three blocks apart, worked at hospitals across the street from each other and both hated cilantro. We rode the 38 together every morning for six years.

She's been at every important moment of my life since: my wedding, my daughter's birth, my fortieth birthday karaoke disaster. I've been at hers.

This year, we went back to that bus stop on the anniversary of the sneezes. We brought coffee and stood there in the rain like idiots. A man waiting for the bus asked what we were celebrating. We told him. He laughed and said, "Bless you."