Some Funny Things Happened On The Way To My Grave

It's been a long time since I've had to deal with any weirdos on my bus ride to or from work. My last apartment location had me riding a bus that had several unfortunate stops, that while alone were not of much consequence, but combined together to created a virtual pool of which strange occurrences where born...often daily. Some of the scenic highlights on my daily bus ride were: a drug abuse clinic for the homeless, two seedy bars, a park frequented by vagrants & drug dealers, a soup kitchen, an employment office for the homeless and of course the Police station. Now matter how much one might claim to sympathies or empathize with the folks who might frequent these locales, goodwill usually dissolves quickly when the guy sitting across from you smells like he pissed himself, and only stops hitting on a female passenger long enough to vomit in his own hat (true story). But it's been almost 3 years since I've had to deal with those types and this morning was much more lightheartedly amusing, than it was repulsive.

I was so deeply engrossed in my current book, Dawkins - The Greatest Show On Earth, that at first I didn't even realize I was being spoken to.

Lady: Sir? Hello sir? Do you go to school? What are you studying? Are you in school?
Me: Me? Oh. No, I'm not in school just reading for fun.

She is probably mid to late thirties, very thin looking, possibly emaciated under her sweater. She had a tight, bony face, pale as all hell, with a wide & thin mouth...like Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler. She was wearing a multicolored beany pulled down over her ears, with a pair of pink headphones emblazoned with nuclear symbols, over that. Of note, is the fact that the head phone cord had been severed at the plastic...she was wearing them for decoration. She like me, was also in a window seat, directly across the isle from mine, but she never moved closer while speaking, requiring me to constantly lean over to hear better. Every time she spoke, her sentence would start strong then trail off to almost unintelligible, as if she were walking away. So keep in mind almost everything she says, I had to ask her to repeat at least once.

As I turned back to my book...

Lady: What is that?
Me: What is what?
Lady: That book. What is it?
Me: It's The Greatest Show on Earth; it's Richard Dawkins' newest on evolution.
Lady: What's it about? I just read a book and I really liked it. I was cool cause my friend wrote it.

I suppress my desire to answer the question "What is it about?" and tell her that's cool and then she sits quietly and I turn back to my book for about one half of a sentence.

Lady: It's this guy I know. He was in a band and played music and got real high all the time and stuff and then he wrote about it. I think it's called American Junkie.
Me: Oh? What's his name?
Lady: Tom I think? Tommmmm....something. I just know him as Tom.
Me: Well that's cool. I have friends trying to be published, good to hear someone is achieving it.

She's quiet again, so I turn back to my book and again get only about one sentence read before...

Lady: It's so great that he actually got his writing published and stuff. I think everyone should write their own book.
Me: I'm sure there are lots of stories untold out there. Some just don't have it in them to write I guess.
Lady: Sorry if I'm keeping you from reading, I'm just feeling good ya know?
Me: No worries.

Again she goes quiet. This time I'm allowed about half a paragraph before I hear her mumbling, I'm hoping she's talking to herself, so I ignore her and keep reading for a moment or two before she clearly raises her voice.

Lady: Excuse me. Sir? Sir? Are you from here?
Me: No. Not originally.
Lady: When was the last time you were here in Seattle?
Me: I live here, I'm just not from...
Lady: Where do you come from?
Me: I...ah...mostly the NW...Portland area mainly.
Lady: I've lived here since I was three. A lot of construction, so much is changed and changin'. Wow [looking out the window at construction site], seems like that lot has been empty forever.

I should note it was demolished only about a month ago, but I don't mention it. She goes quiet yet again. I turn to my book, but I'm anxious. It's like I don't want to start reading again, cause I know I'm just going to be disappointed again when I don't get to finish a line...I can feel the next interrupt coming.

Lady: Didn't there used to be an AM/PM on this corner?

It is here that with a deep sigh, I place my bookmark and put my book away into my backpack. Attempting to read will obviously be futile.

Me: Uh...They are widening the road. I dunno about an AM/PM...there was a gas station just down a block.
Lady: Probably a Shell...they're always Shell's. So much money being spent building stuff. Didn't that President build a bunch of stuff here? What's the President's name?
Me: Uh, president of what?
Lady: The President. You know, the President of the United....the U.S. The U.S. our President.
Me [dumbfounded]: Uh...Obama?
Lady: Yeah...no. Not him. How about the second guy, the vice guy, the President Vice?
Me: Oh. Biden. Joe Biden.
Lady: No that's not it...isn't it Quaid? I thought it was like Dan Quaid. I'm sure I saw it on those little signs all over peoples yards.
Me: You don't mean Dan Quayle, do you?
Lady: Oh I mean Paul Allen, he spent a bunch on buildings here, isn't he President Vice?

My look of shock must be apparent as she continues.

Lady: Like I know who the President is, but all the other guys like the vice and the people who make laws; I don't know about who they are. Is that weird I don't know their names?
Me: It's unfortunately all too normal.
Lady [not catching the insult]: Oh good.

My stop is here and I tell her to have a pleasant day. I smile to myself as I step off, because I can hear her striking up a conversation with the person who filled my seat.

Lady: Don't you just love riding the bus? I love riding the bus, you meet so many interesting people.

Thank goodness it's Friday.


P.S. When I got back to my desk, I looked up the book she mentioned. American Junkie is indeed recently published by a Seattle-ite named Tom Hansen.

This a short story, that requires a longer introduction to understand the greatness of my humiliation.

In my work I assist people with a lot of conferencing, in this case, web-conferencing. This morning there were two computers involved in the presentation process. The "host" computer launched the meeting and has control over muting online attendees & other configuration settings. The host then grants permission to the "presenter" computer, allowing someone other than the host to actually be displaying sides and speaking to all the people attending via web.

After assisting them both through the setup process, I noticed the host PC still had it's webcam on. This meant that although the host PC was not the one displaying the presentation, everyone was still able to see the host's face in a small video window. This could be distracting, so I suggested we turn it off. But the function to completely disable the webcam had been removed from the interface and replaced with a "freeze image" button; basically like a pause button for live video.

Pat yourself on your back if you see where this is going.

Completely disabling the webcam would require exiting the web interface and restarting the meeting, possibly dropping all the attendees, obviously something we didn't want to risk doing a couple minutes before start time. So I leaned over and told the host to just go ahead and use the freeze feature and then left the room as the meeting kicked off. I returned to my office and brought up the web meeting on my office PC to make sure everything looked & sounded right...and to my dismay I found this:



Yup, when the host pressed the "pause" button, the last image it captured was me standing in front of it. That would be MY ginormous pot-belly and man-boobs (moobs if you will) frozen in time for all the meeting attendees to be blinded by. Now you may say, "But there's only seven participants in the meeting window, so it's not THAT bad is it?" What I failed to mention earlier is that each "participant" is a room. A large room. Each one is a conference hall actually; with one laptop at the podium that connects to the webcast. And that laptop is usually projected onto a screen. A large screen. Ours is 16 feet. You think TV is supposed to add a few pounds?! Try having your gut, in all it's gelatinous glory, enlarged to the size of a small car. I just walked a mile in Al Roker's shoes.

And there was nothing I could do...the meeting was going, so my paunch had it's 15 minutes of fame extended to just under an hour. I am Jack's diminished self-esteem.