Thursday, January 24, 2013

Nosey Woman

This mornings bus commute was an interesting one. The bus was running a half hour late and I caught the first one to stop and boarded to find to no surprise that it was quite crowded.  After some passengers got off at 8 Mile I made my way to the very back of the bus and sat at the available seat that faces in toward the aisle.  I pulled out my phone and proceeded to check out the latest message on Facebook from my friend.  I could feel the woman to my side (behind and side) move forward but thought nothing of it. Perhaps she is adjusting her posture. I put the phone away and immediately she says, "What was on Facebook?".  I turned around with a look of being perturbed and said, "It was a personal message from my friend". She in a rather loud, indignant tone says, "Well you don't have to get all huffy about it." and I said, "Oh." to which she mocked me by saying, "Ooohhhh!".  So at this point I just sit quietly. "Does anyone have change for a dollar?",she says. The two people near the back and myself respond "no" after checking. "That's a real nice purse, mam, what store did you buy it at? It's a real nice color." The woman responds while clutching her purse a little tighter, "From Great Lakes Crossing". The prying woman asks her if she went to a particular store Beads and something or other and she responded she didn't buy it there. In a loud voice, "I didn't ask you that. You didn't hear the question correctly." The lady raised her eyebrows and didn't respond. "Excuse me, mam, have you been to that store?" she asked the other woman who was trying to look ahead. "No I haven't." Meanwhile, I was talking to one of the regular riders next to me about the approximate time we would arrive downtown. He was fretting over the fact that this morning was his evaluation and of all days to be late. The woman leaned forward and interrupted our conversation, "Do you have change for a dollar, sir?" he responded,"no."  Another regular passenger who was sitting two seats in front of us turned around and said to her, "do you need change for a dollar?" Her extremely loud response was, "I didn't ask you up there. I asked the people around me. You keep your money up there." He raised his eyebrows and turned around.  The man next to him turned around and addressed her by name and said, "You're looking for change?" She said again in a real loud voice, "I need change for THE CITY BUS. That's what it's called, THE CITY BUS it says that on the front of the BUS."  It quieted down for a while. All of a sudden I feel she is behind be scrapping the frost from the window. I just turned around to see what she was doing and she said, "Excuse me, I need to do this." She tried to talk small talk about traveling with the two women in the back but it didn't last long. They were probably very cautious about interacting with this interesting person. All I can say is:
bus rides = entertainment.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I wouldn't call that nosy. She was downright rude!

Unknown said...

I wouldn't call that nosy. She was downright rude!