Riding the bus with Erin

Here are just a few gems from the road this week. Enjoy...or be weirded out...

1. I was taking the bus to a part of town that I don't frequent. It's kind of a lengthy journey, and I was on a mission to get frozen broccoli. I usually listen to my ipod for those journeys, but I wasn't listening to it for some reason. I also usually tune out the Russian swirling around me. This day, however, I noticed the little boy sitting on his mom's lap. I realized that everytime a car passed on the opposite side of the road (which was often), he said the Russian word for car- very excitedly! His mom just kept saying, "Yes. That's a car. There are lots of cars." She got more and more irritated as I got more and more tickled.

2. I got on the trolley one day this week. A man got on a few stops after me. He sat behind me and started talking. At first, I thought he was talking to me. I realized he wasn't...and then I realized that he was answering himself each time he said something. Hm.

3. Last Monday, I was headed out to some friends' house. The bus was VERY crowded. In the backs of the buses, there's a little raised platform for the last row of seats. I ended up standing on this platform, head squished against the ceiling. I had a grip on the nearest pole, to maintain my precarious balance. A man was standing on the level down from me, with his face WAY too close to my hand. I kept watching his face get closer and closer until...HE WIPED HIS NOSE ON THE BACK OF MY HAND! I do not care who you are- that's gross!

4. A few days after the nose incident, I got on a trolley headed home. A few minutes into the ride, the money-taker lady (from here on, I'll use the Russian word 'conductor' to describe her, although she is not the driver) started fussing at this guy. I realized that this guy was beyond drunk. He was practically sedated (at 3:00pm). The conductor was fussing because every time dude nodded off, he dropped his beer bottle, and it spilled on the floor. After the third time, she told him to get off. He looked at her like she was speaking a different language (ok, for me, she was, but even I understood her!). She settled for handing him a water bottle and telling him to clean it up (smart move- give the drunk guy a bottle of water to clean the floor). He made a HUGE mess and got tickled at himself. I then realized his companion: an equally drunk woman. She wouldn't move her feet for him to clean under them, and the conductor got mad. This made Woman mad. She started yelling and flailing her arms. At this point, the conductor told them both to get off, and she went to the front booth and made the driver pull over. Conductor then physically pushed them out the door on the side of the road.

Crazy.