Thursday, January 16, 2014

Freaks on the bus

I am, as I have mentioned before, a freak magnet.
This apparently means that on public transit I often seem to be the person who desperately needs the homeless, crazed, or generally unbalanced to come share a seat.

This week on the mid-day bus I settled in with my best anti-social face, set my bag on the seat behind me, got out some earbuds (even though I can't find my MP3 player, so I wasn't listening to anything), and put my nose in a book. These seemed to work pretty well.
However, halfway through the route an unpleasant-smelling gentleman boarded the bus and sat right behind me. He was muttering to himself as he got on the bus and never stopped. It was mostly nonsensical but occasionally paranoid-sounding and then I heard him say, "blah blah blah... red heads."
That part was pretty clear.
"Can't trust 'em, blah blah blah, pear [or pair or pare, I certainly wasn't going to inquire about his use of confusing homonyms in his psychotic ranting] blah blah. Fellow [follow??] blah blah blah redhead. "
At this point I was texting with a friends and made a point of mentioning all this and requesting a call to the police tip line in case I got shivved on my way to my car.

There was more rambling and muttering but when I got off at my stop he stayed on the bus so that was a relief. Only a year and a half more of the U district commute. Here's hoping I survive and don't get THAT crazy.

5 comments:

lime said...

you're just an entry level freak, what with the listening to music that's not really playing in headphones connected to nothing. once the rambling texts start coming in about tie dye...blah blah blah....can't trust it.....i'll call the mental health experts in.

maybe time to carry a flat zap at the very least though.

Anonymous said...

flat zap - not threatening enough - go with the Louisville Slugger - Pete Rose model...

Logophile said...

What the heck is a flat zap?
I even googled it and found nothing.
Is this an east coast thing?

Jocelyn said...

Well, I mean, he had no other recourse, what with your offending red-headedness right there, assaulting him.

I think I could read a lot of posts about your freak magnetry.

lime said...

i think it was originally a victorian thing. i googled it too and came up with nothing but it's a flatish, leather-covered lead weight carried for protection so you can bash in the head of an attacker.