maybe he lost his shaker of salt?

This evening, my bus was a little late, but I didn’t mind too much because the weather has cooled off enough for me to dare to call it gorgeous.  My enjoyment ended about two stops later.

He was already yelling as he got on the bus.  I am a bit sketchy on the details, because I don’t speak fluent “enraged middle aged white man,” but I gathered that he was pissed at the bus driver from before because he had tried to get on the bus when it was going the other direction, and was told by the bus driver that he’d either have to get off or pay two fares.  He seemed to believe that his particular bus pass granted him unlimited rides.  He continued to yell all the way to the back of the bus, his bristly white moustache practically blowing in the wind of his hot air as it exited his windbag of a body, as he called our bus driver a bigot.  Oh poor persecuted white man!  I bet he watches Glenn Beck, so fervently did he seem to believe that our black, female bus driver was bigoted against his white male ass, for we all know that white males are a persecuted minority group.

The bus driver attempted to say something to him, and he came yelling back up the aisle of the now-moving bus.  It was along the lines of “ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?” The man sitting next to me said, “Sir, can you please stop yelling? I’m just trying to get home here.”  The man turned to us and started yelling.  “Sir, can you please stop yelling?” I said.  I should probably not have said anything, given that this poor persecuted patriarch probably had a gun in his suitcase.  The driver told him to sit down or be quiet or he’d have to leave the bus.

He did neither.  She pulled the bus over and told him he would have to get off.  He refused.  She radioed a supervisor and we waited for a bus bouncer to arrive.  Yes, they have bus bouncers.  Within a few minutes (I think we were near the main office) a burly white man arrived, boarded the bus, and walked to the back where he asked the resolute hothead to get off the bus.  He complied, although continuing to yell about filing a complaint against the bigoted bus driver all the way off the bus.

The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief as our journey got back underway.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile at the irony that the irate fellow was wearing a Jimmy Buffet t-shirt stretched across his belly.  I think of Jimmy Buffet as mellow, beachy music for people who like to drink margaritas and smoke weed.  Clearly this dude could have used some mellowing.  But for all I know, he’d just busted a flip flop, stepped on a pop top, and cut his heel on the cruise back home, and so was pissed off.  One thing’s for sure, he seemed convinced there was a woman to blame, but *I* know, it’s his own damn fault.