the people on the bus go blah blah blech
Ugh. It was a wonderful day outside today. For the springtime. At least compared to how this winter's been. It was sunny, a slight breeze, and felt around 50. Very, very nice. Because of this, I was pretty alright with the fact that I misread the bus schedule, confusing the weekday chart to today's schedule, and got to the stop a full fifteen minutes early...I decided to walk up the route a bit. 'Twas swell.
After the bus caught up and I rode to the grocery store, did my shopping, and left to the bus stop to wait yet again (no walking while waiting, having ten pounds of potatoes plus another twenty-five pounds of assorted crap on my back along with another bag in my hand made me lazy). I sat there for ten minutes, making phone calls I had to make and whatnot but was happy when I was joined by another bus person.
"How's it going?" I ask.
"They're selling girl scout cookies in the mall," he tells me, having not answered my question, and making me wonder about his mental facalties. "What's your favorite kind?" He adds in a sort of childish tone, affirming my suspicions.
"I guess I'd have to say the mint ones." I tell him...even though it's a very definite for certain that they really are my favorites.
"I like the shortbread ones."
"That's nice." I should have said swell. That was a "swell" kind of moment.
"It reminds me of this book I read once...it was about a boy named Benji who lived with his Uncle in a Lighthouse. They had a bell there and it was big..." I looked at my phone to get the time, "...but one night Benji was trying to sleep and all he could here was the storm, he couldn't hear the bell..." I look up the street, hoping and praying that the damn bus would come, "...so they had to go up there and Benji's uncle asked him to hold the flashlight so he could see what was wrong with the bell... blah blah blah blah"
This whole time I'm nodding away, not paying too much attention, not really giving a rat's ass about Benji, his stupid-ass uncle and the bell in their lighthouse. I'm trying to drop him hints as such, looking around, frantically searching for the bus, checking the time every thirty seconds or so, but he's not getting it...he's so not getting it, in fact, that his storytelling goes interactive as he starts asking me questions about what will happen next in his story: "Do you think they'll figure out what's wrong with the bell?" "Do you think they'll be able to fix it?" He even starts doing impressions of Benji as he gets to the part where they fix the bell (yay!...though it seemed oh so likely that they would from the beginning) and it goes, in his word, "BONG!" and he throws his head back over and over and over again as I even more frantically and desperately search around for the bus or a stranded car with keys in the ignition and the engine running or even some sort of wandering horse or whatever. I'm just about ready to fall down on my knees and ask, no, beg, God for mercy in getting me out of this terribly akward and embarrassing position when the bus comes round the bend. See, there is a God.
Ugh. I can't stand being in that position. I'm too damn nice to say "please shut the fuck up" but at the same time I really don't care enough about strangers' needs to talk to really want to listen. It distresses me. Ugh. It's most definitely a spot in between a rock and a hard place...and it happens all the time on the bus. Last week (or the week before), one guy was telling me about his green notebook that he writes his plas of going to Florida in. He kept telling me it was a green notebook, he kept telling me he had an 8 by 12 trailer down there for himself. He told me these things about a thousand times. I was about to go beserk when he decided my company wasn't good enough for him or something and he moved...mid story. Man.
You know, I feel sort of bad...like I'm intolerant of those with mental disabilities. I almost feel rotten posting this. It's not that I find them less worthy of my attention or that I respect them less than I do others or anything like that...it's just they make me uncomfortable I think. I don't know why that is. It's definitely uncomfortable though. Anyway...
After the bus caught up and I rode to the grocery store, did my shopping, and left to the bus stop to wait yet again (no walking while waiting, having ten pounds of potatoes plus another twenty-five pounds of assorted crap on my back along with another bag in my hand made me lazy). I sat there for ten minutes, making phone calls I had to make and whatnot but was happy when I was joined by another bus person.
"How's it going?" I ask.
"They're selling girl scout cookies in the mall," he tells me, having not answered my question, and making me wonder about his mental facalties. "What's your favorite kind?" He adds in a sort of childish tone, affirming my suspicions.
"I guess I'd have to say the mint ones." I tell him...even though it's a very definite for certain that they really are my favorites.
"I like the shortbread ones."
"That's nice." I should have said swell. That was a "swell" kind of moment.
"It reminds me of this book I read once...it was about a boy named Benji who lived with his Uncle in a Lighthouse. They had a bell there and it was big..." I looked at my phone to get the time, "...but one night Benji was trying to sleep and all he could here was the storm, he couldn't hear the bell..." I look up the street, hoping and praying that the damn bus would come, "...so they had to go up there and Benji's uncle asked him to hold the flashlight so he could see what was wrong with the bell... blah blah blah blah"
This whole time I'm nodding away, not paying too much attention, not really giving a rat's ass about Benji, his stupid-ass uncle and the bell in their lighthouse. I'm trying to drop him hints as such, looking around, frantically searching for the bus, checking the time every thirty seconds or so, but he's not getting it...he's so not getting it, in fact, that his storytelling goes interactive as he starts asking me questions about what will happen next in his story: "Do you think they'll figure out what's wrong with the bell?" "Do you think they'll be able to fix it?" He even starts doing impressions of Benji as he gets to the part where they fix the bell (yay!...though it seemed oh so likely that they would from the beginning) and it goes, in his word, "BONG!" and he throws his head back over and over and over again as I even more frantically and desperately search around for the bus or a stranded car with keys in the ignition and the engine running or even some sort of wandering horse or whatever. I'm just about ready to fall down on my knees and ask, no, beg, God for mercy in getting me out of this terribly akward and embarrassing position when the bus comes round the bend. See, there is a God.
Ugh. I can't stand being in that position. I'm too damn nice to say "please shut the fuck up" but at the same time I really don't care enough about strangers' needs to talk to really want to listen. It distresses me. Ugh. It's most definitely a spot in between a rock and a hard place...and it happens all the time on the bus. Last week (or the week before), one guy was telling me about his green notebook that he writes his plas of going to Florida in. He kept telling me it was a green notebook, he kept telling me he had an 8 by 12 trailer down there for himself. He told me these things about a thousand times. I was about to go beserk when he decided my company wasn't good enough for him or something and he moved...mid story. Man.
You know, I feel sort of bad...like I'm intolerant of those with mental disabilities. I almost feel rotten posting this. It's not that I find them less worthy of my attention or that I respect them less than I do others or anything like that...it's just they make me uncomfortable I think. I don't know why that is. It's definitely uncomfortable though. Anyway...
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