I hate the bus
Posted on | November 24, 2006 | Comments Off
Getting the bus into town the other night. Sitting quietly upstairs listening to my iPod when the bus stopped sharply. Something rolled along the floor and hit me in the foot. As I shifted to look at it, I noticed the girl in the seat behind me shifting and looking at the floor. So, chivalrous as you like, I picked up the object which turned out to be a half-empty soft drinks bottle. I turned in my seat and held it out for the girl to take back. She just looked at me like I was a nutter.
Moving at the speed of embarrassment, my brain registered the fact that the bottle actually wasn’t hers and that she had been looking on the floor because it had brushed her foot on its journey to stop at mine. Instead of a nice guy returning the nice girl’s drink, I was in fact a mentalist offering rubbish to a stranger on the bus.
To top it all, I had a half-empty bottle to deal with. I couldn’t put it back on the floor as that seemed like it would be even weirder (and it would just roll around again). I couldn’t wander around the bus to see if it had an owner. I don’t know the etiquette for this sort of situation. What do you do? I had to hang onto it and nonchalantly pretend that nothing was wrong until my stop. Then I left it on my seat. I hate the bus.
Comments
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and debase my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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