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Friday, November 9, 2012

Come Sit Next to Me, or Is The Bus Normally This Loud?


I’ve developed a craving for one of those accordion buses. They’re almost twice as long as a regular bus.  Think of the room...

The urge for a bigger bus came earlier this week.

The dead bolt to my front door refused to lock Monday morning for reasons it did not disclose. It took forty-five minutes of sweating, swearing, and seriously considering calling in to work “irritable” before the door was locked.

And in that time, I had dramatically missed my usual bus.

You know, you think you know a bus after riding it for eight years. You think you know the drivers, the faces of your fellow commuters. Generally speaking, the people on the 6:30 are all going to work.

A quick wash-up, a check of the bus schedule, and I now face riding the 9:20.

The folks on the 9:20 do not have the look of work about them.

Speculation as to where they were headed dressed in pajama bottoms and sleep in their eyes we shall leave to the professionals.

What is important here is that my fellow riders are loud and unconfined by societal expectations.

Let's listen in, shall we?

You see, I’m a firm believer in eavesdropping, particularly if avoiding doing so means turning up my iPod to levels likely to induce ear-bleed. The commuters I am accustomed to do not spend a lot of time on the phone, preferring to stare blankly out the window, so my listening in on this particular morning to the myriad calls going on at one time promises to be a treat.

The following conversation is actually a conglomeration of the five or six cell phone conversations that went on around me.

To get the full effect, the following is best delivered at the top of your lungs.

“Where you at? HUH? Where you at?”

As a quick aside, the phrase “where you at” is the quickest way for me to stop paying attention, but I persevere.

“Nah, nah. I be downtown in 20. Who? Wha’? Girl I can’t hear you! Speak up!”

There is a brief pause while the girl speaks up.

“What? No, he trippin’. He trippin' for real.  Him and Trina/Ray-Ray/Boo/Mary Elizabeth be out at the clubs and I KNOW he ain’t tryin’ to tell me he ain’t! I’m gonna take care of my own, you hear what I’m sayin’? I’m gonna get PAID and he the one gonna pay me.”

I lose consciousness momentarily while these sentences are repeated in varying permutations.

“She best watch her back, that’s all I’m saying. I munna GIT mine, you know what I'm saying?  What? No, he don’t. No he don't.  NO HE DON’T! Hold on a sec, I got another call.”

She answers her other line and spends the next several minutes bringing the new person up to speed.

You know, I thought it would get interesting at some point. After all, there may have been reasons around all those stained, baggy-seated pajama bottoms. There may have even been reasons behind the wild hair, the just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-into-boots look.

But no one goes in to any of that.

And we are left hanging.

Does she get paid?  Does she get hers?  Do he be trippin' for real?



Happy weekend, everyone.  Don't forget to come back tomorrow.


37 comments:

Sausage said...

Stuck in the frozen tundra? ready for a jaunt down south?
I am wearing socks today because it is 65 bloody degrees.
The Margaritas don't even need ice this time of year.
I must be trippin...
Cheers, Sausage.

Pearl said...

SF, everyone knows Florida is not a real place. :-)
We're expecting 60 degrees Saturday. I'll probably wear a swimsuit.

Anonymous said...

I have been seeing pj bottoms on the street a lot lately. Is it a new fashion trend?
I haven't been on a bus for many a year but I do remember the early morning commute to work with people who's faces were stuck to the window with sleep drool.

fmcgmccllc said...

Goodness you made me homesick for Plant Loco. Having heard the rest of the conversation many times, she never gets paid, she never gets hers and yes he is really trippin'. Trippin' as in embellishing little white lies he has told on her. It is good to know that your schools are better than ours as your peeps say "No he don't" instead of "No he dinnit". Oh, I almost forgot, they are saving their good clothes for when they go out, which does not seem to mean out of the house.

Nessa Locke said...

A large percentage of these pajama-clad people can be found at Walmart at any given point of the day. I'll ask around and see if I can find out what happened...

Pearl said...

Delores, I'm afraid so. The number of people out in flannel pj bottoms and slippers -- real house slippers! -- increases daily. One despairs.

fmcgmccclc, :-) I suspected as much. Honestly, the number of people relaying pretty much the same information, all at the same time, was kind of beautiful, in a symphonic sort of way.

Hmm. A bus opera... I can hear the libretto now...

Pearl said...

Nessa, :-) Fabulous.
There is not a WalMart near me, which I regret if only for the raw story material...

Anonymous said...

I'd hate to be left hanging like that...

Dr. Cynicism said...

"Speculation as to where they were headed dressed in pajama bottoms and sleep in their eyes we shall leave to the professionals." HAHAHA! I assume that 9:20 crowd are the people that don't have early jobs, jobs at all, or those that just don't give a hoot about being late? Sounds like a really fun ride!

Watson said...

I just GOTTA start riding the bus - tho I doubt we would have the variety of characters here.

Anonymous said...

Do we really care?

And here I thought there could be nothing good about taking that early morning bus. I was so wrong.

Shelly said...

Makes me wonder what they did on the bus in the primordial time before cell phones, before haute pajama bottoms...

Pearl said...

Green Girl, I've been making up little stories about how it all ended ever since...

Dr. Cynicism, I have no idea how these people get their money. Needles to say, wherever they were headed, there wasn't a dress code.

Daisy, there are characters every where. :-)

haphazard, it's a rich life out there...

Shelly, housecoats? :-)

Leenie said...

I had no idea your cold part of the world spoke a different language. What does it all mean? We Idahoans speak good. You bet. You gonna eat those tots?

Unknown said...

Those pajama bottoms are so in! I hate seeing them, especially on overweight men!

Pearl said...

Leenie, oh, you betcha. :-) And yes, I AM eating those tots -- you got any more of that good gravy?

Eva, oh, I hear you. All those saggy bottoms?? I can hear my grandma now: "Looks like SOMEone needs their diaper changed!"

Vicus Scurra said...

Just imagine how rich your life would be if it involved travelling on a different bus on a different schedule each day.

Moving with Mitchell said...

Oh, yeah, he most definitely be trippin'!

One of the benefits of living in a country where I haven't fully mastered the language... It's much easier to tune out these idiotic conversations.

You know what I'm sayin'?

Anonymous said...

Wha the f'you tawkin bout, girl? Donyou speek English??

esbboston said...

I have now seen the word 'munna' for the first time eVer and in its natural setting amongst a herd of containerized wild beasts in migration. "We must get a photo before moving on ..." I must say, I have not thought about bendy busses in quite some time, being smaLL townish.

&^)

Ernest

Jenny Woolf said...

This isn't fair, we don't seem to have people like that in London at all. Maybe I go on the wrong buses though.

Kana said...

Here in AK, land of extreme temperatures, ferocious independence and such, a trip on the bus is a celebration of all the individuals who failed so hard in life they "couldn't even" get a car. It's never dull, I can tell you that! But the homeless lady vs. the raver guy in yellow goggles battle does, admittedly, occur more in the afternoon area. Morning buses are full of elderly Walmart greeters.

Joanne Noragon said...

OMG; I heard this conversation not too long ago, in downtown Akron, Ohio. It's the leveling of America?!

Missed Periods said...

I'm pretty sure he be trippin' for real. I just feel it.

Lee Weber said...

Got caught in the Twilight Zone, huh? It amazes me how people spend so much time on the phone and saying nothing! Oh, wait a minute, at least nothing I can even understand... I used to take the T into Boston every morning... it was interesting. Sounds like the best part of the ride was the momentary loss of consciousness. At least that kept your ears from bleeding...

Pat said...

Some of the pyjamas these days are quite acceptable as casual dress, don't you think?

stephen Hayes said...

We had those buses here in Oregon. I think they called them articulated buses, and they were horrible to ride in and broke down often.

Inspector Clouseau said...

"The dead bolt to my front door refused to lock Monday morning for reasons it did not disclose. "

Wow. I only wish that I could write as well as you. What a great line!

Inspector Clouseau said...

I think that those exact same people were on my bus earlier today in a state hundreds of miles away!

Geo. said...

I love to ride accordion buses in San Francisco. On some hilltops, they nearly fold in half. Definitely adds to the dreamlike atmosphere.

jenny_o said...

I do be grinnin' away here :)

River said...

Very funny and now we know why your door wanted you to experience the later bus.
We get our share of loud phone conversations here and I find them annoying if the person is right behind me and I'm trying to read.

Swimsuits at 60*? Seriously? I don't even get out of my jeans until at least 75*, plus I don't own a swimsuit anymore.

Elephant's Child said...

I love riding the bus anyway because it hones my eavesdropping skills. I am very sorry I cannot take a ride on yours though.
Re the pyjama clad people? There are a few supermarkets in the UK who reportedly have in place a 'no sleepwear' dress code. Obviously it is a scary world wide phenomenon.

Roses said...

I miss public transport. Not.

I'm an earwigger by nature. I want to join in peoples' conversations, read books over their shoulders, correct grammar in their texts and help them with their crosswords.

I don't.

I don't like our ER department very much.

Raymond Alexander Kukkee said...

Pearl, Oil the deadbolt a bit, and try pulling and lifting the door just a bit AS you lock the deadbolt. The screws on the door hinges may be loosened, allowing the door to sag a bit which puts the deadbolt out of line with the doorjamb.
Tightening a few screws ought to help the saggy pj's too. ":)

WrathofDawn said...

I have been riding the bus lately due to a sudden and determined work to rule action on the part of my car.

The other day, there was a man speaking loudly on a cell phone in a language I do not understand (which usually is a good thing as you can't listen to what they're saying) and he ended every comment with a strangely high-pitched, stacatto, "Eh! Eh! Eh! Mmmmm..."

It was like Chinese water torture, waiting for each sentence to end and the inevitable, "Eh! Eh! Eh!" to begin.

It occured to me afterwards that perhaps that is the equivalent in his language to the, "Uh huh!" or "Oh, yeah!" that we English speakers interject during our conversations.

But I still wanted to hit him.

WrathofDawn said...

P.S. - Every time I get on a bus, I think of you.