Posts Tagged ‘bus’

Guess there’s no point asking her out now

Posted: July 15, 2016 in humor, humour, Life, truth-telling
Tags: , ,
11

It’s late on a Thursday night, and I should have known better. Too late. A generous amount of Ravenswood Chardonnay has completed its magic, and my head is doing that bob-bobbing thing it likes to do, as the bus trundles along on its merry way home.

I allow one foot to precariously follow the other as I weave my half-snapped way to an empty seat. There’s an attractive woman there, and she’s thoughtfully moved closer to the window, all the better to help me avoid having to climb over her to the only vacant spot left.

I plunk myself down in relief and prepare to slumber my way toward the final few miles to my home bus stop.

Only…. My nose twitches. And twitches again. Something is seriously amiss.

I look over at the woman next to me, who at this point is now obstinately staring face-forward. Desperate. Afraid. Anxious.

No. It can’t be.

But it is.

A more heinous ambience can’t be imagined.

This veritable tulip, this rose of the fairer sex has emitted a soulful and delicate silent backfire, no doubt hoping against hope for the gain of anonymity.

Yet it was not to be. For I, the seeker of lost passions and artifacts of renown, have found her out. She is but a ghost to most, but is to me she is as the stop sign to eternity’s perfume.

Still, gallant man that I am, I labour to keep her dread secret, if only to preserve my status as gentleman and appreciator of all that is good and right in the world. My nose has other ideas. My nose is offended.

I open my drunken mouth, and hesitate.

Then, “ew.”

oops_sorry

Urban Soak

Posted: July 9, 2013 in humor, humour, Life, romance
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9

Rain

Teeming.

That was the word for it.  I tried out other synonyms.   “Pouring”.  “Pounding”.  “Sneaking”.

Sneaking?

The early weather report had called for occasional thunderstorms and brief moments of rain.  I was prepared.

The day before, I had carried my collapsible umbrella onto the subway train.  After getting off at my stop, my ADHD brain said “wait.  Something’s wrong.”  And it wasn’t until the doors closed that I realized I’d left my umbrella on the car.  I watched helplessly as the train picked up speed and nonchalantly took off.  No doubt it would provide someone else some protection.  Not me though.

The next day I watched the weather report, and in particular took note of the word “chance”.  “Chance” as in:  if you bring your umbrella you’re going to be the only person holding one, as everyone else around you – all wearing sunglasses and tans – will smile at you with patronizing derision. 

Still, I had a bit of walking to do, so I hunted down my spare umbrella – the huge clunky one – to carry with me for the day.

When I got out of the massage therapist’s office, I noticed it was …..teeming outside.  “Good” I thought.  Unlike some of those bedraggled sun-tanned miscreants standing in the doorway, waiting for it to settle, I had my giant black Marry Poppins umbrella, all deployed and ready to go.

I stepped out, secure in my dryness, and walked across the street to the bus stop.

Midway through the intersection the rain stopped teeming and began to roar with abandon.  At one point, the only part of me left dry was my face.  Barely.  The rain had sneaked under the umbrella – by virtue of the gunshot pounding at the ground, which could only ricochet up and at my clothing – and soaked me thoroughly.  A girl and I took what shelter we could find in the overhang outside of a dentist’s office.

“Nice weather, huh?” she said, smiling.

“What?” I replied.

“I SAID—never mind” she frowned.

I could barely make out anything she said over the storm’s argument. 

“Funny how….FUNNY HOW WE HAVE TO STAND HERE WITH OUR UMBRELLAS AND STILL CAN’T KEEP DRY” she offered.

“What? Oh…  Yeah” I rejoined.  I must have intimidated her with my magnificent social skills and verbiage, as she gave up saying anything after that.

I tried though.  “So”, I started.  “SO.  JUST HEADING HOME FROM WORK?” I asked.

She nodded.

The bus came.  We could see the poor travelling souls, standing in the bus aisles, bum to rump and wet clothing all sticking to each other.

She got on.  I said “I’ll wait for the next one”.  I could see it in the distance.

After it arrived, I found an empty seat and sat down, grateful and wet.  The novel I was reading was just getting interesting when the driver announced “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – THIS BUS IS OUT OF SERVICE AT LAWRENCE”. 

“Are you freaking kidding me?”  It wasn’t until the short older lady with the moustache and hairnet sitting in front of me turned around and glanced my way with a startled expression that I realized I had said it aloud. 

We all bundled out of the bus, and stood in the rain with our shielding umbrellas until the next one arrived.  It was already fairly packed with people, so we had to force our way onto it, bum to rump, all wet and miserable.

Then we noticed something else.  The power was out everywhere.  This meant there were no stoplights.  And this meant that the rate of travel in amongst the rat-like horde of cars went from slow to “oh my God it’s like we’re going backward”.  Some Hasidic Jewish kids, all dressed in black took it upon themselves to direct traffic at one intersection.  They had no umbrellas and looked like they were having a blast.  I smiled, kind of wishing I was a teen again.

The thought of the romance of rain blossomed.  I recalled that first romantic kiss I took with a girl when we were in our teens.  It happened under her see-through umbrella on a dark rainy night.  I remembered the lemony scent of her perfume and the intense, surreal joy of holding her closely, and sharing breath for a while.

Though we all made it to our destinations (after passing drowned cars – so many drowned cars – along the way), I couldn’t help thinking.  One important pass-fail aspect of any future romantic relationships will be my partner’s tolerance or acceptance of rain-enhanced public displays of affection. 

But by that I mean “light rain” not “sneaky, pounding, pouring teeming ricocheting rain”.   That crap’s just gross.

Ugly

Posted: March 22, 2013 in humor, Life, living
Tags: , , , , , ,
14

The watery sunlight tried in vain to filter its way through the caked smears of mud on the back window of the bus.  This of course merely increased my sense of tiredness, as I turned away to glance at the woman who was just now paying her fare prior to plumping herself down on the front seat, facing the aisle.

“Ugly”

The word was a sudden, visceral thought, clambering up from the depths of consciousness, without warning or explanation.

Since it’s rare for me to ever make such a judgement about someone merely on the basis of looks, I got curious and wondered about its origin.

True, the woman was no beauty queen, but it was still winter and no one appeared all that graceful beneath layers of puffed polyester and wool.   So why did my inner self judge her so harshly?   I sat quietly and observed her.

She was a portly woman, likely in her late forties, and she wore a dark coat which reached her knees.  When she sat down, the coat raised up, revealing a dark pair of slacks.   Her wiry hair was piled on her head, in a sort of Aunt Bee beehive style (wait!  Is that where “beehive” came from?), and she wore thick glasses. 

Her pale sickly face had a sort of a “don’t mess with me” look about it: intolerant of the world at large.   I wondered if that was her public game face:  the face many Torontonians adopt when scurrying about in the big metropolis;  designed to keep all others at bay, especially those who walk up to us with those cute little stickers that they give us, prior to begging for money “for my kids and I”.

As the bus made several stops more, I watched the woman, who seemed entirely caught up in her own little world.  She must have been, based upon what she did next.

Funny, isn’t it, how we tend to obsess over our personal appearance:  we want our friends to tell us if we have bits of celery in our teeth, or a tag hanging out of the back of our shirt.  I recall a saleslady in a store pulling me aside to remove the size tag from the front of my shirt – for which I was grateful.  And how many times have you been found walking around with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe?

Maybe you’ll recall the Jerry Seinfeld episode, where he was stopped at a stoplight, and he had an itch at the side of his nose.   In the scene, his model girlfriend was riding in a cab which pulled up next to him, just as he was scratching the itch.  She saw his nose action and interpreted it as something a little more gross – and the story went downhill from there.

Well that’s exactly what the woman did.  Or so I thought.  She appeared to be scratching just on the inside of her nostril.  

However, all doubt was removed when suddenly she went in, knuckle deep and began to dig.

I felt myself frowning in awed disgust.   It was like a traffic accident – I could not look away.

After she was done digging, she put her hand down to her slacks, and rubbed off the residue on them.  My horrified frown deepened.

“Ugh.  That’s horrible.  At least it can’t get any worse”, I thought.

I thought wrong. 

I watched, fascinated as she used her other hand to enter the opposite nostril, and began to root around like she was looking for spare change.   This time, she pulled something out, and rolled it between her fingers.

I could feel my whole face contracting, almost in pain.

And then…..(I’m not even joking here – I’m a grown man, and don’t participate in juvenile jokes, which this was beginning to resemble)….she ran her gooey hand through her brittle hair.

The penny dropped.  The last straw hit the camel’s back.  My last nerve pinged like a broken guitar string.

I looked out of the dirty window, and nodded.   “Yup”, I thought.  “That’s about right.”

And then – I couldn’t help myself – I burst out laughing.