Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On the Bus

I like it when I'm able to laugh at angry people. Today, when I got on the bus, everyone decided it would be a good idea to just stand right inside the doors, so that I barely missed them closing on me. Once inside, I saw that basically the entire bus was open, and that people were just blocking the way. Saying, "Excuse me," I started to head back to the back of the bus since clearly everyone was just going to stand there obliviously, but as I was going through one particularly tight squeeze, with one very overweight person on my right and another person on my left (who has a roll-around suitcase at her feet), I hear the woman on my left say very loudly, "Excuse me. Excuse me!" I look back, once I've almost fallen over because the bus is moving and I'm trying my hardest not to touch anyone and these people refused to move at all to accommodate me passing by, and find to my surprise that this woman is addressing me. Keep in mind that she is about a foot taller than me, and a decent weight, so probably about 60 or 70 pounds heavier. "You almost knocked me over back there." I smiled, thinking she was joking, since there is absolutely no way I could have knocked this woman over, even trying my hardest. I lost the smile pretty quickly, though, when I realized she was very angry about it, and told her I had been trying to get past her to make room for people getting on the bus. "Yeah, and you nearly knocked me over doing it." At this point, the interchange had become a scene, and everyone on the bus was staring at us. I wanted so badly to note that she had clearly been making it a point to not let me through when I said excuse me, and that it was only as a result of her arbitrary, bullying stubbornness that our coats even came into physical contact, but of course, I apologized, saying that hadn't been my intention. Nostrils flaring and head cocked to the side, she said "OK," and proceeded to move herself out of the aisle so that boarding passengers could get by.

::sigh::

3 comments:

forrest said...

I work with a woman like that... kind of. She's in her fifties and has never been married so very set in her ways (and probably never married because of how set in her ways she was when she was young). Anyway, she survives on routine and on knowing what's coming--the bus times, her shifts at work, etc. So she becomes really unstable when things don't go how she expects. The thrashes out in exceptional anger. I'm always shocked at the quantity and quality of her hatred for whoever's closest to her when things dno't go her way. That woman, the large one on the bus, is probably similar--afraid of a lot of things and totally trapped inside those fears; so if you just brush her coat, she panics and it comes out as rage.

Ladybug said...

what a bitch

forrest said...

haha. That seems very funny. Hey, sorry I didn't return your phone call. I've been crazy out of my mind trying to get caught up with this company and this new job which I loooooove and am really f-ing good at. (It took me less than two weeks to pretty much run the company. weeee)

Anyway. Let's talk soon. Things are slowing down a bit now and I'm sleeping a little better too.