My keyboard seems to have unstuck itself most of the way. Except the space bar. It still doesn't want to budge, but when it does, it's very enthusiastic about it. <---see (ok, this is weird. only two spaces show up, although what I've typed has like a hundred spaces)? So, I'm writing an entry.
I sat next to a nice crazy man on the bus today. Because he was nice, I felt really bad for wanting to bludgeon him with my mp3 player. I was sitting on the window seat, and Crazy Man plopped down right next to me. He was about two and a half times my width. I mean, I tried to be understanding, but you can only get so cozy with a stranger on the bus before the discomfort starts.
So, at first it was okay. I'm smooshed, yeah, but there's really nowhere else for him to sit. But then he started talking to me. And this is where iPod Action Plan comes into play. Crazy Man strikes up conversation with his two friends--me and the invisible man who is apparently sitting on my lap--, and I can pretend that I don't know he's speaking to me. Thus, no hurt feelings on his part, and no uncontrollable urges to throw myself out the emergency exit on my part.
After Crazy Man realized I couldn't hear him, he continued talking to someone--I don't know who, may as well have been his pet gourd Fred because there was really no one else within conversational distance. He caught my eye a couple times and smiled, and I smiled back, and I thought, Ok, it's going to be all right. No awkward conversations here. We just smile at each other. Good times.
Then he started digging in his pocket for something, I don't know what. He (and, the first time I typed this, I wrote "I" instead of "He", which is really funny to me) removed all 762 objects from his pants pocket one by one, elbowing me viciously in the arm every single time he went for anothing dig. That's when the bludgeoning fantasies began. But then he'd smile at me periodically, and it was such a sweet smile that I couldn't hold onto the bad angry feelings.
Apparently, what he wanted was not in his pocket (of course not!). Back went all 762 objects into his pocket, one by one--dig, dig, dig, flash an appeasing grin at me, dig, dig, dig, break my rib, etc.
Finally everything was back in his pocket. I heaved a sigh of relief.
Now, the digging in the pocketsessss had been bearable because I knew there was a finite number of things to dig for and to put back. I knew it would end sometime. But then he started played with his knit cap. He'd fold it, unfold it, toss it in the air, catch it (which, ouch in my arm), put it on his head. I was rather surprised that he didn't start petting it or offer it to me as a tasty snack. Knowing this could go on indefinitely, I despaired. I still had 20 minutes left on my bus ride, meanwhile my right arm is slowly turning to pureed meat.
But he was such a happy man! I couldn't be angry! But I wanted to be! Which made me even angrier!
Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, Crazy Man got off the bus, still not successful in his treasure-digging.
I looked at the seat next to me after he'd gotten up, and there it was. His pen! He'd wanted his pen all along, and it had been under him. I swear to you that, if I had known that's where the pen was, I would have reached my hand under his rear and retrieved it myself. That's how desperate I was.
I struck up a conversation with a bus driver today who came to eat at my restaurant. Boy did he have a good one. There's a man who comes on his morning bus every day. This man rides by himself, but he always pays two fares. The empty seat next to him contains one imaginary friend. To get around this and save the man some money, the bus driver has told him multiple times, "Oh, don't worry about your friend. He can ride for free." The man's response: "He'd better pay. He's an effing a-hole, and he deserves to pay. If he ever doesn't, just let me know, and I'll kick his effin'a**."
If anyone sits in the imaginary friend's lap by accident, the guy freaks out. He yells, he screams, he swears. And, here's the best part: just to settle everyone down, the bus driver comes over and says, "You can't sit there because you're on his friend's lap." It takes a real man to say that with a straight face every single morning and not go off the deep end.
I'm so glad I don't drive a bus. I would cry at least once an hour. Or I would just snap one day and have my imaginary henchman shoot everyone. I don't know which.
I'm going to bed. I can't handle this space bar anymore. It's making me twitchy.
No comments:
Post a Comment