Saturday, April 30, 2005
Yesterday there was a woman riding my bus who could only be described as "belligerently insane." One of those cases where someone is so mad at the world because she sees what she thinks is the simple solution to everything, and is incensed that nobody else sees it her way.
This woman noticed that the front doors of my bus kept getting stuck open, and I was closing them by reaching over with my ice scraper and jabbing them. She started complaining to me about how horrible the University was for paying so much money for professors when they can't even fix the bus door. It turned into a political rant...she seemed to think this had something to do with George Bush. I just ignored her as she ranted about how she was going to write a note to the "bus department" to change the system. Then she began laughing maniacally. Now that she had the full attention of all the passengers, suddenly the diatribe became directed at ME. "Did your mother raise you to be so ignorant?" she wondered. She shouted insults at me until we arrived at her stop.
Me: "Have a wonderful afternoon."
Her: "You're a fucking idiot!"
Me: "Please go away."
She got out of the bus, and stood outside the door screaming at me and asking for my name as people got on. Normally I would have said something sarcastic like "Madam, you can go to the Parking and Transportation office and they'll give you a full refund." but I was seriously starting to worry that she was about to get violent. So I just closed the door dismissively and left.
So to misquote the punchline from Monty Python's "Dirty Fork" sketch, it's a good thing I didn't tell her about the broken spedometer!
This woman noticed that the front doors of my bus kept getting stuck open, and I was closing them by reaching over with my ice scraper and jabbing them. She started complaining to me about how horrible the University was for paying so much money for professors when they can't even fix the bus door. It turned into a political rant...she seemed to think this had something to do with George Bush. I just ignored her as she ranted about how she was going to write a note to the "bus department" to change the system. Then she began laughing maniacally. Now that she had the full attention of all the passengers, suddenly the diatribe became directed at ME. "Did your mother raise you to be so ignorant?" she wondered. She shouted insults at me until we arrived at her stop.
Me: "Have a wonderful afternoon."
Her: "You're a fucking idiot!"
Me: "Please go away."
She got out of the bus, and stood outside the door screaming at me and asking for my name as people got on. Normally I would have said something sarcastic like "Madam, you can go to the Parking and Transportation office and they'll give you a full refund." but I was seriously starting to worry that she was about to get violent. So I just closed the door dismissively and left.
So to misquote the punchline from Monty Python's "Dirty Fork" sketch, it's a good thing I didn't tell her about the broken spedometer!
