Sunday, February 20, 2011

Riding the Bus

I ride the bus every Monday, Thursday, and Friday to and from work. Sometimes I read, other times I listen to music on my ipod, and other times I just sit, listen, and observe.

That's what this post is about: what I listened to and observed on a few notable occasions lately.

On one trip I happened to overhear the young woman behind me talking to her friend on her cell phone....

First she begins by saying she doesn't feel like getting off the bus. She'd already passed her stop and was heading downtown, but just didn't feel like getting off the bus. Didn't know what she'd do that day, but didn't feel like getting off the bus.

Then she calls in to work and asks the person on the other end if her co-worker can fill in for her. She'd left home and was on the bus, had passed by work, but just didn't feel like getting off the bus.

Then she calls someone else and tells them she's not at work, still on the bus, and doesn't feel like getting off the bus. Doesn't know if she'll get off before she gets home because she has nothing to do and no money.

That's where I got off the bus.

I was left thinking "hmmmmm....has no money and doesn't feel like getting off the bus to go to work....ya think there's a connection?!"

The next occasion was even more interesting...

A guy sits down beside another guy and begins to tell him his life story. He isn't old; in fact, he tells the guy he's just 25. Apparently he's been in prison the past seven years. He's glad he got his high school diploma before he went to prison, otherwise he'd have been there another three years. He was upset that a security camera hidden inside a stuffed toy caught him as he committed the crime for which he was sent to jail. The guy beside him agreed that it was wrong to have hidden cameras - unfair to guys like them trying to get by.

You could see and feel the looks of astonishment by those sitting around them. I expect to see his mug shot on the local news soon.

On a third occasion...

I was seated directly behind a large woman with a slight cough. Seated beside her was another woman - younger, and holding a cell phone. Apparently the young woman was annoyed with the large woman's slight cough - almost imperceptible to me. I could see what she was texting on her phone. The text read: "Ima gonna kill this bitch she coughs one more time."

Did she think that the woman couldn't see her texting and read it as well as I could? The phone was only a foot or two away for crying out loud! I wanted to slap her right then and there.

Lastly...

During one recent conversation I had a very difficult time as I couldn't understand much of what was being said due to the dialect of the three women speaking. They were certainly loud enough though. Even the bus driver had to shout to them to keep it down. I think he did so as much in response to their volume as their vocabulary. A good three-quarters of every sentence consisted of "hell", "damn", "bitch", "ni**a", "ho", "fuck", etc. Most memorable was when one said, "Dat ho come at me, Ima pop that ni**a bitch."

Classy. Real classy.

Really, if any of these people want to know what's wrong in their lives, all they have to do is look in the mirror.