Q-tip

It was an interesting day for people watching today on the bus.  I thought that the woman in front of me might be a bit of a character.  How did I know?  Well, the fact that she was wearing a nylon on her head was my first clue.  When she got off the bus, I saw her in profile and was mesmerized by her artistic eyebrows!  They were clearly drawn on and had sort of a feathered effect to them.  And, there were double eyebrows about each eye!  As if she had not two but four eyebrows!

When I was in grad school and working at the UWM library, there was a guy who always caught my attention.  I thought of him as a living q-tip as he was long and thin and his head was covered in white, fuzzy hair--much like a cotton ball or q-tip!  I still see him around town and I remember these early memories of him from several years ago.  Well, q-tip boarded the bus today, much to my delight!  It doesn't get much better than that!

The Smells on the Bus Go Round and Round...

It's been a few weeks since I updated the blog.  Clearly, I have been a little lazy.  So, here's a tale for you.  Yesterday was not a stellar day on the bus.  I boarded and took my seat.  An older fellow was sitting in front of me.  And he smelled so strongly of cigarettes--it was as if he smoked an entire pack immediately before boarding. Little did I know what was in store for me.  A fellow sat next to me and other than fidgeting some and wiping his nose on his bare arm, he was perfectly fine.  Shortly after he departed, a larger, older woman sat next to me.  Or on me, more accurately.  She was touching me far too much (there is no acceptable amount of touching on the bus, of course).  After plastering myself against the wall to avoid her meaty leg, I noted an odor.  Or odors, really.  Gentle readers, it was the smell of unwashed bodily orifices from below the belt.  I was driven to smell my own fingers for some relief.  And suddenly, the Marlboro Man in front of me didn't seem as bad.  My stinky neighbor also had some serious self talk going on and her hands were in almost constant motion, fluttering around like humming birds.  I was VERY relieved when she charged to the front of the bus and announced to the driver that she needed the next stop.  I'd also suggest that she needed a shower!

Dictation

Today, it seemed that a guy was dictating some kind of news report over the phone.  He spoke loudly and it was annoying.  "XYZ comma, new sentence, new paragraph," etc.  It was weird.  Something about a gingerbread house land?  And apparently, his daughter is this person: http://law.shu.edu/Faculty/fulltime_faculty/Rachel-Godsil.cfm

The things you learn on the bus.

An Epic Journey

I stayed a little later at work yesterday, so today I caught a slightly earlier bus.  When I boarded, I noticed that the bus driver looked amused.  And I also noticed the very loud volume in the bus.  I found a seat towards the back and was able to observe what was going on.  There were eight drunk, loud women on the bus.  Several sat up front (in the elderly and disabled seats, which always bothers me) and then a few were in the back, behind me.  The ladies in the front were really, really loud.  They were shouting, saying things like "Mama needs a ticket to get off the goddamn bus," and waving their transfer tickets around and they had lots of questions for the poor bus driver.  They must have asked him half a dozen times if he would tell them when to get off the bus.  They were heading to Brady Street, the entire bus soon learned.  They were so drunk that I could smell the booze from where I sat.

Finally, it was time for them to depart.  They de-bused and marched right into a tattoo shop on Brady. Very interesting.  I'm sure that their tattoos will be lovely!

Once they got off, I saw that my old friend Mark was on the bus!  Remember Mark?  I only saw him from behind, but he was so familiar.  And, I noticed that he was really chatting up the rider next to him.  When he got off the bus, he loudly thanked and blessed the bus driver.  When I heard that, I knew it had to be my pal Mark!  Sadly, there was no singing this time.  Maybe next time!

An Unwanted Encounter

I sometimes take the bus south Friday afternoons if I am going to Bayview for acupuncture.  This was the case last week Friday.  It was sprinkling out, so I sat in the small bus shelter to get out of the rain.  I heard some noise and caught some motion out of the corner of my eye, which let me know that someone else joined me in the bus shelter, too.  I soon picked up his smell as well. (yuck...).  I then heard some giggling and thought to myself. "IGNORE THIS PERSON."  Well, that worked ok for a few minutes but ultimately was not a successful strategy.  I soon heard unintelligible blathering.  I eventually picked out something like, "Hey, whatsa matter wich you?"  after this was repeated several times.  I of course ignored this statement, but finally looked up to see a man so clearly wasted--he was actually sloshing around a half empty bottle of booze (sorry, I wasn't able to see what kind it was, but I suspect that it was some kind of brandy).  He asked me this a few more times until I said, feeling annoyed, "Nothing is the matter with me." I then left the bus shelter as dealing with a few light rain drops was preferable to dealing with this fool's everything.  He then followed me out of the shelter and asked me his question AGAIN.  So, I told him that he was clearly drunk and that I didn't want to talk to him.  He said ok and meandered off on his way.

Early

My afternoon bus was 6 minutes early today. He has been running late the past two week. I was on the wrong side of the street and about half a block away from the bus...sadly, no way to catch up. I guess that I will be waiting. Sigh. I was looking forward to getting home early.

However, while I waited, I did see a pair of old creepers eyeball some young ladies (could have been their granddaughters), so there's that. Yuck!

A Little Thin

While this didn't happen on the bus, I observed this happening while on the bus yesterday.  There was a seemingly friendly fellow at one of the major bus stops.  I watched him through the window as he chatted with riders getting off and on the bus.  He acted like he knew everyone--shaking hands, clapping them on the back, etc.  When he turned, I saw that he had some rather large holes in the rear of his jeans...and he was not wearing underwear.  I could see his butt!

No.