It is with some remorse and much reflection that my fingers take to clicking my keyboard to tap out the final episode of As the Polygon Turns.
Tuesday July 7th was my last bus ride in. I took the old standby 6:20. And as often happens in the life of mere mortals and non-movie stars, nothing particularly momentous happened. The usual characters whom we have come to find curious and amusing were either not there or simply less than amusing. But the bland ride in silence gave me time to reflect and dig back through my notes of the past couple of months when I have been so remiss in reporting their shenanigans.
So as sort of a medley of bus rides – not unlike the awful medleys we children of the 80s were made to sing in chorus – I will recap some of the past few month’s bus snippets.
4/14 Ah... Nice and toasty! I just got on the bus. There's a slight chill to the morning. It's been warm - t-shirt and shorts weather for sure - so the fact that it's a bit nippy out now makes it feel all the nippier. Well, my pal Bill has left the office for good, so now I must take up opening up the office at 6:45. And here I find myself taking a bus at a new time, sizing up a new bus gang. Some of my 6:20 riders have also made the switch at some time or another. There is eyepatch man (whom my husband calls ‘Cyclops’), Friendly Face and plenty of people from the street up the road who sit in "priority seating" when they really shouldn't. Hmmm.
One woman who just got on is sporting a pin on the collar of her jacket. For a split second I thought it was a collar device, as it is placed and spaced to about the same specifications as a military collar device. Before the better judgment of my saner self could stop me, I thought, “What's her rank, rate or specialty? Diamond doggie?” What a style! PLEASE!
This woman became a regular fixture in my morning. Upon closer inspection one morning, I realized that it was a cat, not a dog on her collar pin. As you will soon see, just a week later Kitty Collar developed a new way to catch my attention – and incur my vexation.
4/29 Hmmm. The lady in the barn coat with the kitty cat collar device just came aboard. Good, she sat in front of me – that means Smoker Chica won't be in front of me. Smoker Chica’s ash and second-hand toxins plague my sensitive little nose receptors from Braddock to the Beltway and beyond. And somehow, as has become the running joke between me and my new bus stop pal Kate, Smoker Chica seems to magnetically find a place near me – or at the very least within noseshot.
Uh, but wait--- Kitty Collar is wearing simply pungent perfume... My nose can't win!
Some other woman in pink, the color and size of watermelon flesh just sat next to her. Uh, wait, Smoker Chica’s just now getting on... I can't type fast enough... Thumbs don't fail me now... Smoker lady just sat down NEXT to me. Damnnnnnn. Well, no matter… I am already breathing like I have a cold on account of kitty collar's repugnant eau de toilette. Sigh.
One afternoon, I was a little early for the bus – or the bus was running late, which in essence is really the same thing – and as I stood idly in line, deleting sent and stupid emails on my crackberry, I noticed a somewhat sallow, upper middle-aged gentlemen holding a book just millimeters from his face – so close it looked like he was sniffing it rather than reading it. And he was taking the story in – whether by nose or by eyes – so fervently that I thought had he drank it through a straw he would surely have given himself a headache. Heck, come to think of it, if most people held their book that close to read or to sniff, it would likely make them dizzy. His must have been a real page-turner and he a novel hoover. Maybe it was a scratch and sniff book.
5/1 It’s May. It’s Monday.
“Good Morning, Gene!” someone calls out as Friendly Face climbs aboard.
"Eh, ah, oh eh, ah, yeah, hey, morning, Monday again!" The salutations ring out then simmer to mumbles behind me like a pot turned down on the stove. But as each new familiar face comes aboard, they rise and fall again.
The 5:57 bus is remarkably voluble this morning. It's pouring outside, and the word is the previous bus didn't show. Some people, whether by their words or their clothes, seem to insist on making the wet weather wholly apparent to the rest of us here in warmdry bus world. Like the woman who waddled on like a water-logged hen, nested right in front of me and shook her soaked plumage all over the young blonde to her left, cluck cluck clucking all the time about late and rain and Mondays and rain and late buses and Mondays.
Looking around … Oh, all of our best friends are here: Cyclops, Sleepy Indian Man, Mr. Shitshoe, Kitty Collar, Smoker Chica … and others.
"What happened to the first bus?" a particularly snappy man queries the driver as he comes aboard.
"Ah! Ha! I have no idea, good morning, Sir!" the driver cheerfully answers back, trying to bring sunshine to make up for the rain as much as he is picking up passengers for his predecessor.
Standing room only now. And still more than a couple of stops until the highway. ...Ah, so it's Monday. It's May. And here I sit, taking in the collective gloom as much as the curiosities that are the morning commute.
5/11 While waiting in line for the afternoon buses, I spied a sign: "Lost Fountain Pen on 17K made by Cross black with matte finish if found call Linda 555-5555 [not the real phone #]. So the 17K is made by cross black with a matte? Finish if found call Linda? …I spun iterations and iterations of word combinations of that unpunctuated sentence around in my head and amused myself for a good ten minutes. Doing so reminded me of one lunchtime my friends and I spent in the cafeteria in high school. There was a boy a couple of tables over whom we deemed “gross.” I can’t now even remember what it was that made him seem gross, whether a zitty face, B.O., corpulence, or a despicable disposition. It really doesn’t matter. As my two best friends and I sat together, one of us said, “YOU are so gross.” Then another followed with, “You ARE so gross.” Me with “You are SO gross” … “You are so GROSS!” … and we just continued on in a circle until we realized that each and none of the emphases could possibly do his grossness justice.
About a week later, my morning was marked by more direct confrontation ... oh what these saintly bus drivers have to put up with!
5/25
“Hey... Move it all ’dway back!” the driver yelled to the Russian judge putting his bike on the front rack of the bus.
"You different... Everybody's different..." Judge said, waving his hands about in absurd frustration.
"Yeah...up. Everybody's different," the driver concurred half-heartedly as though he fully grasped the deeper meaning.
“No, listen!” Judge vociferated again, leaning forward insistently. "You see, I am there, s'my bike, I can see, I the judge."
"Okay, okay, well good." Clearly, the driver just wanted Judge to take his seat.
And so he did. Clomping down the aisle, he mumbled away, "I da judge, I da judge." Yes, yes, sir you are.
Oh and by the way, she's in my line of smell again. That’s right, Smoker Chica. Grr-ruh!
And so most of my mornings continued much like those: mostly comforting in their monotony yet spruced up by little minor events of mankind.
So whether one is commuting or communing with the masses, toiling at a daily grind or grinding out miles on the road, I have found that the best way to keep my spirits up and myself focused and fancy-free is to delight in people’s quirks – though they sometimes may be smelly – find a theme-song and imagine everyday as an episode in life’s great soap opera.
Incidentally, Cyclops’ theme song – or at least his ring tone – is “Give me that fill-lay o’fish … give me that fish!” This cracks me up. What a happy guy! My 2010 theme song is “Soul Sister” because the way you cut a rug, watching you is the only drug I need … and I ain’t gonna miss a single thing you do- ooo- oooh … tonight!
