That Alarm in Your Head is Meant to be Noticed

Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens, welcome to Friday, the day on which we ask ourselves, Why didn’t I get an education and ensure myself a better-paying job?

The answer, my friend, is that I don’t know. Everyone tried to talk to you about it, but you know how you are.

You didn’t listen.

But it’s not too late! The future is still before us. And now, through my steadfast and possibly erroneous belief in the oracle-y powers of my iPod, played on the Friday morning commute and carefully scrutinized, you, too, can predict your immediate future.

Aw, come on! Play along!

This Story by Eyedea & Abilities
What Does it Take (to win your love) by Jr. Walker
Television, the Drug of the Nation by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy
House Party by The JB Horns
Will It Go Round in Circles by Billy Preston
Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron

Hmm. Looks like a good weekend, with a decent beat and perhaps a horn section in the background. Drink lots of fluids and get plenty of sleep. Wait – that might just be for me, because, for the second time in under a month, I left work early Monday. Sick again, I took my throbbing head and increasingly stuffed-up nose out the door and to the bus stop.

Now, I would not describe myself as a paranoid person.

That said, however, I noticed the young man at the bus stop immediately.

He arrived moments after I did, but he seemed to be looking at the people at the bus stop more than he seemed to be awaiting a bus. As he approached me, I put my new Kindle in my purse, pull my bus pass from my purse and board.

It is as the bus is pulling away, that it appears he suddenly remembers that this is his bus. Waving his arms, the driver stops, the doors open, and he boards.

He takes a seat three behind me.

We are almost over the bridge when I hear him talking.

“Miss? Hello? Hello? Hellooooooo.”

I’ve got my earbuds in, but my iPod is not on. When I feel there might be something going on, something to listen to, I turn it off.

I’ve believed in my gut all my life, and my gut didn’t like this man.

I ignore him.

“Hello? Helloooooo! Miss? Miss?” The volume is somewhere between a whisper and a mutter, and I finally turn around.

He has a cell phone to his ear. He smiles at me. I turn back around. I know he’s been talking to me.

He’s not talking to anyone on the phone. I turn around, look at him again. The phone is no longer out.

He smiles.

Someone at the front of the bus pulls the cord, and I jump up and get off of it at the last possible second.

And I watch the bus, with him still in the back of it, go on without me.

I’ll catch a different one.