Loud mouths disturbing the peace

You're on your way home from a hard day at work. You were running around like a headless chicken and you were trying to please 10 people simultaneously, which all in all meant you were babysitting your office. You get on the bus on time which is amazing for a Thursday evening. You're on board what is seemingly a quiet bus. You close your eyes and start to unwind. You feel yourself dozing off. Then you hear this person's cell phone ring, and they happen to have it on maximum volume, so everyone and their mom on the bus can hear it. Sitting two seats away from me was this large, Amazon-type Caucasian woman taking her phone out of her purse. She puts it to her ear and yells out, "HELLO?!" She had to have been in her early 20's from the way she was dressed, acting, and talking - oh, and her make-up job was one to be desired. She carried on in her conversation, acting as though she couldn't hear herself. There was absolutely no noise coming from the bus except the engine running and the brakes squeeking. Everyone on the bus literally stared down at her. One old lady, who you'd think would have poor hearing, had to cover her ears because the bitch was that loud. At one point, this girl said, "I hate this rain... I left the house with my hair looking amazing, and then the rain fucked it all up!" I looked at her hair... not only were her roots showing (she dyes it blonde, but I could see dark brown roots), but her hair was flat and dead at the ends. There was no body to it. It looked like it hadn't been washed for days. The way she dressed appeared to be her attempt to look hip, but it was only an implication to me that she didn't know h0w to dress. She looked around at everybody and yelled into the phone, "Everyone's staring at me like they've never seen a woman before!" I had to laugh, which I could tell she didn't appreciate. Finally, the bus driver said, "If you don't shut up, I'm kicking you off the bus right now." There was dead silence while we sat at a red light. She grabbed her belongings while keeping the phone at her ear, and got off the bus. "Well!" I started, "That was easy!" Everyone cheered and laughed.

I took a ride on the #17, in... the Twilight Zone...

It was as cold this morning as it was yesterday. A nippy 38 degrees, but the fog was missing, which to me implies that the day will be somewhat warmer in the afternooon. I got to my bus stop about 3 minutes earlier than I normally would. The bus was about 2 minutes early. As usual, I had my bus fare out in my hand, ready to feed the fare taker. In my normal routine, I boarded while saying, "Good morning!" But when I looked up, it wasn't my regular bus driver, an older white guy by the name of Ken. It was young, clean shaven black guy. I'm thinking, "Hey! Where's Ken? He NEVER misses a day!" Just yesterday he was fine and then he's not there... totally threw me off. I looked around the bus, and I didn't recognize a single passenger except for the older Asian fellow sitting next to me who I usually see on the evening bus when I go home from work. All the usual people who take the same bus as me weren't there! So I'm sitting there, feeling like I'm on the wrong #17 bus, trying to work my little tired and half-asleep brain, wondering if I caught an "early" bus that was running late, but then again, that was the same scheduled bus I would've taken on a normal day anyway... but should it matter?

So we move on. Once over the Ross Island bridge, there is a turn that the bus makes on its route, that is a right turn on SW 1st Ave. I'm dozing in out of consciousness when all of a sudden I heard a lady passenger yell out, "Hey! Where you going?" The driver, who I now realized had a slight resemblance to Ralph Tresvant from New Edition, said, "Aww man! I thought I was on the 9 for a minute there! Aww man...." He couldn't stop smiling at himself out of embarassment. He started to get busy pushing buttons on his litter transmitter to enter certain types of info that headquarters receives on their end since it will effect the route. He made up for his lost time quickly and turned on a street that cut the route by only stops. Not once did the bus have a person left standing without a seat. It was that empty. About 6 stops before mine, I saw one more recognizable person get on, but even then, that person looked "odd" in their own way. I got to work about 5 minutes earlier than expected. I don't know how, but I did. It was, after all, a ride in... the Twilight Zone.