I’ve blogged fairly extensively about my less-than-stellar experiences on and waiting for the bus. I’ve been harassed, stared at, honked at, and whistled at, and made uncomfortable. I’ve been chatted up by mentally ill homeless people and stuck sitting next to smelly guys day after day. I’ve even been given a phone number by a man who apparently found the back of my head alluring, as he’d been sitting behind me the entire ride. But I think I may have just had my strangest experience thus far.
I was standing at my stop, sweating in the full sun and trying to keep the wind generated by cars whizzing by from blowing my skirt up, wondering if I should just get out the umbrella to give myself some shade. That’s when a car with two typical South Carolina preppy, fraternity types stopped at the light nearby. When one rolled down his window, I was expecting more bus stop lewd/rudeness.
But instead I heard:
Hey! I like your shoes!
I was so taken aback all I could say was, “Thanks!”
Photo via Google's Life Photo Archive.I ride the bus to work every day, as I’ve mentioned. And more than any other consideration, where to sit on the bus occupies a lot of my thoughts. In general, I think of the seats at the front of the bus, the two rows of 6 seats facing each other across the aisle, as a place for older people, or people with strollers and small children to sit, or for people hopping on who plan to hop off in just a few spots. I also admit that I was raised by people with Good Southern Manners and occasionally have to resist the urge to give side-eye to able-bodied men who sit in these seats, because of some sort of vague “women and children first” idea. I’m generally able bodied, and generally, I would think someone like me should not sit in these seats unless no other seats were available.
So, one of the things about riding the bus is that I need to carry a certain number of things with me every day. First and foremost, for the event of rain, I carry an umbrella and a folds-into-a-pocket raincoat with me every time I ride the bus. The rest of my Every Day Carry is a book, a composition book, a couple of pens or sharpies, cell phone, wallet, keys, sunglasses, way more lip products than I’ll ever need, a lunchbag, a stainless steel water bottle, a thermos, and a cardigan or a pashmina because my office is generally freezing. Bottom line is: I carry a lot of stuff every single day.
Currently, I’m using a ginormo tote that is a black burlap-y material, with leather straps that are reinforced with
My current clothes-ruining tote.
grommet things. It has a zip closure, which is nice in the event of rain so my books don’t get ruined. It’s about 18 inches wide, 12 inches tall, and 5 inches deep. And it’s ruining my clothes. Apparently the weird burlap-y material rubs against my cardigans and jersey dresses and causes them to pill like crazy. And I can’t have that happening.
So, I need help picking a new tote. If possible, I’d like my money to go to an acutal human instead of someone like the Gap (though I like this tote), so, after browsing like 100 pages of totes on Etsy, I found a great seller: banyanhippo. Only problem is I like SEVERAL of the bags. Want to help me choose? Just leave me a comment and tell me which one you like. Or if you have seen other great ginormo totes somewhere recently, tell me about it!
Option 1:
"Daphne in the Garden" 16x10.5x5, $34.
Option 2:
Plane leaves in blue sky, 15x12x5, $25.
Option 3:
Fora II, 15x12x5, $25.
Option 4:
Elegant and Handy Everyday Purse, 15x12x5, $25.
Edit: did some more looking and found a couple more that I like.
So, not having TV, and not particularly caring, I missed the newest offering from the dudes who brought us “Dick in a
You got your flippy floppies? I want to SLAPPY SLAPPY. Or maybe STABBY STABBY.
Box” and “Jizz in my Pants.” Apparently it’s called “I’m on a Boat.” Apparently their song titles only ever have four words? Anyway, I just watched it, and I have new reason to hate it after this morning. First, watch the video here (they’re jerks and won’t let me embed it directly into my post, also, language warnings for readers prone to the vapors).
They sing:
I got my swim trunks, and my flippy-floppies, you at Kinkos straight flippin’ copies.
Only for me it’s more like:
You got your swim trunks, and your flippy-floppies? I’m on tha bus, straight flippin’ you off.
One of the problems of living in a coastal tourist town is that I have to cross a river to get to work. And that river is connected to the ocean. And that river is full of marinas where rich folks keep their yachts. And on some mornings, those rich folks make hundreds of people late to work because the bridge has to be opened up for them to take their boats out to sea. That’s what happened this morning.
First, I missed my usual bus. No big deal, I’ll only be about 15 minutes late if I take the next one, and no one at the office really cares if I don’t arrive straight up at 9. That was until some m*****f***** on a boat, as the song goes, some Andy Samberg wannabe, decided it was time to be “straight flowin on a boat on the deep blue sea.” We had no choice but to look at the m******f****** boat, because all traffic came to a complete standstill in the middle of RUSH HOUR.
This wouldn’t have been so bad had the bridge not gotten stuck in the open position. So by the time the JERKS on the BOAT were “bustin 5 knots” we were decidedly NOT moving. We sat there, on the bus, for 45 minutes. Just sitting, probably all getting infected with Swine Flu thanks to the three folks sneezing their heads off (gee thanks, Joe Biden, for making me paranoid about riding the bus!). By the time we finally got moving again, I ended up an hour late to work.
Seems like they shouldn’t be allowed to open the bridge except between 10 and 3, and after 6. Then, no one would be late going or coming from work just so T-Pain can f*** a mermaid.
For a college advanced comp course, I once wrote a pretty scathing essay about people who are addicted to their ipods. I believe I created an extended metaphor about ipods as invaders from another planet, slipping their tentacles into people’s ears and slowly sucking out their brains, turning them into pod people. I may have even suggested that ipods are a health hazard, as more than once I nearly gave a roommate a heart attack by “sneaking” into our room before she saw or heard me, thanks to the music blaring in her ears, causing her to shriek upon suddenly seeing me. It was a pretty funny essay and it even got published in my college town’s paper. Ever since, I’ve tried to avoid becoming a pod person. Yes, I have and love a few-generations-old red ipod nano. But it mostly only saw use in my car and on long plane trips, as I dreaded becoming one of those people addicted to my own personal soundtrack, shutting out the world as I walk down the street or sit on the bus. I’d rather use my bus time to chat with people sitting around me, and walking down the street, I tend to get a little tree-hugger, listening to birds and stopping to inhale deeply any time I pass a jasmine vine.
Things changed today.
She's clearly become captive to the pod people. By Martin Krzywinski @ Flickr.
As I boarded my bus, I could already hear a man pontificating. I have no idea what compels the crazies to sit at the front of the bus and regale the poor drivers with their thoughts on life and politics and child rearing, but there’s always at least one, oblivious to the effect they are having on everyone else’s commute, conducting a running monologue all the way to wherever it is they’re going. This morning, it was a white-haired older man, who seemed to be speaking in fragments about how white men just don’t want to work hard (um, did he know what color HE was?), how dumb it is that people keep coming downtown and robbing college students because they don’t have any money (um, I WORK at the college, and let me tell you, plenty of these kids probably have plenty of money that they keep in the Range Rover mommy and daddy sent them off to college in), and how they should rob the tourists down on the battery instead. Seriously. He said, “Those white women have $12,000 diamond rings on their fingers, cut off a finger, you’ve got yourself a score!” He also went on about how he doesn’t drink or “use the cocaine” because “those are white women things. They love to drink those martinis with their pinkies in the air.” When (and I note that at this point we had made it about, oh, a mile from my house, so he really packed the info in) he launched into some sort of diatribe about sending his pennies to Obama so all the lazy black men could get jobs (at this point I decided he was just a misanthrope who hated everyone– white women, white men, black men, maybe the only ones he likes are black women like the bus driver he seemed to be trying to impress), I decided it was time to find the escape pod.
I fished around in my giant be-prepared-for-anything-that-could-happen-on-the-bus tote and found my trusty little ipod, Weasley. I slipped those little white “tentacles” into my ears, clicked on my “Summer Dance Party” playlist and slid my thumb around the dial, cranking up the volume. The lady sitting next to me, white tentacles also in her ears, nodded at me and smiled. A friend of mine across the aisle looked at me with jealousy, wishing she too could tune out the crazy sermonizer. When I couldn’t hear his insane rantings anymore, it was sort of funny to imagine his mouth moving to the lyrics of M.I.A. and MGMT. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I tapped my foot to the beat.
Now, in order to avoid true pod-dom, I should probably have removed the “tentacles” as I hopped off the bus for my short walk to the office, but I fear their little feelers had already worked themselves into my mind– one of my favorite songs had come on and I walked to its beat all the way to my building. I sort of hope there isn’t a camera in the elevator because I may or may not have had a little dance party somewhere between the first and fourth floors… Guess it’s time to welcome my shiny red Apple overlord.
When encountering rude, staring people, my mother used to mutter, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer!” I think I’m having the opposite problem. I’ve begun to notice strangers taking my picture…perhaps because it’ll last longer.
Now, maybe this is one of the hazards of living in a well-known tourist town. People flock here to take
I think this campaign is why they are flocking here... What do you think?
carriage tours of historic homes and gardens, to see Spanish moss hanging from gnarled live oaks, and to dine on shrimp and grits. During the spring and summer tourist season, as I stand at my bus stop on one of downtown’s main drags after work, I am often approached by tourists. “Does this bus go to the visitor’s center?” (yes). “Which way to the battery?” (that way). My personal favorite is to watch them photographing the building immediately across the street from my bus stop. It’s a cool looking building, I’ll give them that, but as far as I know, and according to the walking tour book we bought for entertaining out of town guests, it has no real historical significance. More than once, eager be-fanny-packed tourists toting large cameras have stopped to ask me, “What is THAT building? Was it a school?” I usually smile and say, “Well ma’am, I’ve only lived here a couple years, and I don’t know. Right now it’s just an apartment building.” I mean, I don’t want to let people down on the Southern Hospitality portion of their experience, but, WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE, A TOUR GUIDE? I’M JUST STANDING HERE, PROBABLY HOT, AND IRRITATED THAT THE EFFING BUS IS LATE FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME.
And then, one day, as I was boarding my bus, one of the be-fanny-packed socks-with-sandals tourists snapped my picture. AIN’T NUTHIN’ SCENIC BOUT MY SKINNY ASS GETTING ON A CITY BUS. MOVE ALONG. I have no idea what they’ll say about THAT photo when showing folks their photos from their lovely vacation down South. I mean, I didn’t even tell them that I’m a real live curtsey-ing debutante or anything, so as far as they know I’m just some random girl who rides the bus.
I just basically assumed that the bus-stop photographer was an anomaly until I was on my lunch break, shuffling my lil flip flops down one of the main shopping drags immediately adjacent to my work, having made a quick run to The Body Shop for my favorite hair product (Cottonseed Curl Boost— thanks to it, I no longer blow dry). I was passing the Louis Vuitton store and trying not to covet when a man leaned out of his carriage tour and snapped my picture again! I think I scowled at him. Now, I’ve been on plenty of vacations in my life, and Lord knows, anyone who’s seen the number of photos I took in England alone knows I like to document my experiences. But never have I ever snapped random photos of people on the street. What is WITH that? I feel sorta like my privacy has been invaded. Who were those people who thought getting your picture taken stole a little piece of your soul? I feel them.
Late breaking update: as I stood at the bus stop after work today, waiting for a 10-minutes-late bus, some guy hanging out the window of his car took my picture. Pretty sure he wasn’t a tourist, just a creep. Such weird things always happen to me, usually involving my time on the bus.
When I started a new job in January, I also started riding the bus for the first time ever. I wanted to ride the bus largely because of my environmental convictions– it’s hard to be a tree hugging hippie with a bus stop a block from home and still choose to drive my car, four banger though it is, because I’m sure Al Gore would haunt me in my dreams, shaking his finger at me and telling me about all the baby polar bears I was killing just to drive myself 5 miles to work each day. I also wanted to ride the bus because my job provides me with a free bus pass but charges for parking. So between saving money and saving the earth, getting familiar with the public transit system was pretty much my only option.
City bus, 1953 via Seattle Municipal Archives @ flickr
Before I go any further, I should mention that aside from field trips, I had never even so much as ridden a school bus. Seasoned “car rider” here. My mom didn’t want to miss that decompression conversation with us every day after school, plus she was convinced kids would try to sell us drugs on the bus or something. Perhaps as a result of my bus-free experience up until now, I was quite scared my first day of bus-riding, afraid I’d miss the bus, afraid I wouldn’t get off at the right stop, afraid I’d miss the bus after work, afraid I didn’t know where the stop closest to my house on the other side of the road was, afraid of the kind of people I’d see on the bus, afraid of what I’d do if it was pouring rain and I had to walk two blocks from the bus stop to my office…
erniebufflo's south & west kitchen 