Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Woman Reading on the Bus

On the way there, to my brother's house, on the bus, there was a woman sitting across the aisle from me and she was reading a book. I tried to see what the book was but she had it flat down. Why couldn't she just turn it up for a second so I could get a look at the cover? Why was it always flat down like that? I wondered if she perhaps didn't want me to see what she was reading. Maybe it was a Danielle Steele novel, in which case I wouldn't blame her for keeping the cover flat down away from sight of other readers on the bus, the majority of whom must surely have more imagination.
Disgusted, I looked around at other people on the bus. Now look here! There is a twenty-something DUDE with white earphone wires. Why are they white, and not black? Why are they white, and not pink, or purple, or lime green? I remembered that yesterday when I was walking home after seeing Old Boy, every second person I saw had those white wires coming out of their ears, and they disappeared somewhere in their clothing or bag. They are all robots, I think, made by a big electronics company and put out on the street to walk around in the hope that these white wire-equipped robots will convince other people that here is something desirable. How many of these robots step out into the street to get violently bounced up into the air by a fast-moving vehicle? They didn't hear the horn blast, because the white wires were in their ears, transmitting some kind of musical atrocity at deafening volume.
Suddenly something happened. The bus had stopped to let people off and to collect some people, the bus driver slammed the accelerator, as they like to do, and it achieved the desired effect: a woman desperately reached out to a pole to balance herself but was swung around like an insane and fully clothed pole dancer, and landed in the lap of a seated man. She flailed around, looking up at the man, she had an embarassed, comical expression all over her face that seemed to say, I didn't mean to do this, you know. I really did not intend to be down here, in your lap, looking up at you like this. It was the bus driver and his accelerator pedal. The man smiled back at her, he understood. No harm done. She got up and smiled at everybody. Everybody smiled back at her. I smiled, too.
I enjoy riding on the bus, despite those women who refuse to let me see what book they are reading.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I can answer the white earphones question for you. iPod comes with white earphones. I'd assume they all had an iPod. I don't have one, because MD players are better.

Anonymous said...

Ya, those white earphones. Freakin scary. I live over here in the San FrRancisco Bay Area, USA and on any given BART train at any given time, about 1/3 of the passengers in every single car have those damn things stuck in their ears. It's an epidemic of unoriginality. On behalf of Apple, a Bay Area company, I send my sincerest apologies for their unleashing this blandness on the world.

Stratu said...

hey anonymous, thank for the comment. holy smokes, one third?! i guess it is not surprising, if that place (Bay Area) is the home of the company that makes the damn things.
Bay Area: first robot capital of USA! *YOU ARE HEARING ME TALK! YOU ARE HEARING ME TALK!*