How You Don't Want To Spend An Hour

Sarah at Gilbert Giggles used to write about her funny bus stories, but now that she's a Stay At Home Mom, her adventures in bussing have come to an end, and I feel like the internet is a sadder place because of it. So I'm going to make a feeble attempt to fill that void with this story:

You guys know how I'm in training for mobility, right? And I mentioned on Facebook that as part of that training, I had to ride public transportation home, and it took me three hours? Okay, now that we're all caught up, I'll start there.

So I'm on the train. If it helps you to picture it, I'm wearing a cardigan, jeans, tattered Converse sneakers, unflattering sunglasses, and I'm holding a white cane. I'm also wearing earphones for my IPod in order to avoid awkward conversations such as, "Why do carry that cane?" "How do you know where you're even going?" and my personal favorite, thus far, "Don't blind people get free dogs when they turn 18?" People are stupid. There is a lady to my right who is carrying around a basket full of carpet samples and stuffed animals, a college-aged girl in front of me, who wasn't taught how to cross her legs at the ankle, especially when wearing Booty Shorts and a Nude-colored tube top, and an older man, a couple of seats to my left, with bleached blonde hair and crazy eyes.

So anyway, I'm sitting there, trying to mind my own business, when I realize, the Beach Bum Old Man is starting to mimic my movements. He can't tell that I can see him, and he's staring at me intently, and when I scratch my cheek, he scratches his cheek, and when I cross my feet, he crosses his feet. I scratch my right arm, to test my theory, and he, sure enough, scratches his arm. Only it's his left arm. "So he's a dyslexic psychopath," I infer.

So I tap my foot. And he taps his foot. And I know that I'm about three mimicked movements away from this guy believing he's me, and I'm him, and he's going to need to wear my skin to complete the transfer of brainwaves that have somehow been mistakenly placed in the body of a 29-year-old blind girl who seems to really like the soundtrack to Xanadu.

I sit perfectly still, hoping this guy will just forget I'm there. I eye him through my dark shades, and he continues to stare, and sometimes smile, and I just want the train to hurry up and get to this guy's stop, and it just never happens, because here we are, end of the line, and I'm getting up, and he's getting up, and OH MY GOSH PLEASE DON'T LET THE LAST SONG I EVER LISTEN TO BE OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN'S 'SUDDENLY' ......

And then he goes in a different direction, and I get on the #40 bus, and we're miles apart.

I am never going on the train by myself ever, ever again. The end.