My mother always remembers how to spell "assume" with the sentence "when you do this, you make an ass out of u and me." (Actually, my mother thinks "assume" is spelled "assyoume" because of this phrase, but that's beside the point.)
I had a ridiculous run in on the bus and decided to share it with you. It fits in with yesterday's discussion of the joys of poverty quite well. Medically, I probably could drive, though I couldn't due to seizures for a while, but mostly I take the bus because I simply cannot afford a car. I have a hard enough time with $2.50 a day, 5 days a week. If you've ridden the bus outside of NYC* you know that most people who ride the bus are quite poor. The bus is literally their only option aside from walking or not going someplace. Outside of NYC, bus routes and schedules tend to be inconvenient and poorly planned, and riding the bus involves a lot of hurry up and wait. (For example, I'm writing this at 8:15. I'm at work 45 minutes early because the next bus would get me here 15 minutes late.)
In other words, nobody in my neck of the woods is riding the bus for pleasure. We're all poor. (Or high school students. They are comatose on the way in, and I avoid the 3:00 bus as if it were dipped in ebola.)
Anyway, a wonderful friend of mine gave me her old Kindle recently, loaded with great books, (you are the best!) and I've been passing my time on the bus reading it. No regular on the bus has blinked an eye, in fact, two women I talk to asked if my birthday had just passed. (Poor people understand that rich items are often the result of birthdays.)
Until this morning, when a well dressed woman I have never seen before started bitching that they weren't raising the bus rates when clearly people who ride the bus can afford it, looking pointedly at my Kindle. (Raising the bus rates is always a contentious issue at election time where I live.)
Look, poor people often have wealthier friends or relatives. Wealthier friends and relatives who understand that a touch of luxury, whether it be a Kindle or an ipod or an expensive coat, is often more appreciated than a paid bill. Luxury is a lovely thing when one is grinding away in poverty, wearing a winter coat indoors instead of turning on the heat, and skipping lunch so the electric bill gets paid. Hey, life sucks, but this Kindle is awesome!
And I don't have to explain to anyone where my Kindle came from. I did, in the most contemptuous tone of voice I can manage** and it didn't do a lick of good. She segued straight into welfare queens, of course. On a bus. Filled with actual welfare recipients and their children.
Good morning to me!
*Public transportation is a whole 'nother thing in NYC.
**I sound like a 6-year-old with a cold. It makes both sexy and contemptuous rather difficult to convey.
This makes me ill. Who on earth was this woman opining to?
ReplyDeleteAnother great thing about NYC: on our ballot today are candidates from the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. :D Their website is particularly straight to the point, saying in bold yellow, “We apologize for the bad grammar. But... your rent is still too damn high.” You just know they had me at "we apologize for the bad grammar."
We mostly get pet eating loons out this way.
ReplyDeletePF, you want to talk about loons, just check out everyone running in Oklahoma. I am certain Oklahoma is actually going for craziest state in the country.
ReplyDeleteShe segued straight into welfare queens, of course.
ReplyDeleteI have to ask something, PF. Since "segue" means "to make a transition from one thing to another smoothly and without interruption," and I can accept that nobody interrupted her, but how in the hell does one move smoothly to welfare queens? From anything, even something closely related? I simply can't picture it. The mental image I'm getting is:
"Well, actually, the kindle was a present from-"
"WELFARE QUEENS! BWAHAHAHAHAH!"
damnit, Quasar, STOP STEALING MY POSTS!!!!
ReplyDeleteexcept, i'd have added - woman's DAMNED lucky that the Real People who ride the bus were all too damned exhausted from working their asses off at jobs-that-don't-pay-anywhere-NEAR-enough to have the energy to beat the FUCK out of her like she deserved.
[i was recently called a Welfare Queen for buying Ensure on foodstamps. i can't eat real food. Ensure *IS* my "real food", or at least replaces it. person didn't seem to notice or CARE that i got nothing else, and when i said "i can't eat solid food, it makes me ill" the person told me if i "stopped being a drug addict welfare queen, i WOULD be able to eat."
"but... um, i'm NOT a drug addict, i have severe medical issues. REAL ones. and... if i "stopped" "being a welfare queen", i wouldn't be able to eat at ALL. pay attention - i'm in a WHEELCHAIR. now fuck off"
the manager had to come and kick this asshole out of the store. [i will NOT repeat the rest of what that person said. will. NOT.]
"damnit, Quasar, STOP STEALING MY POSTS!!!!"
ReplyDeleteI apologise most heartily. I did not realise that my post would cause offen- WELFARE QUEENS!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAH!
*ahem* I feel dirty.
I would have done more than kick the asshole out of the store. Not immediately, though. I'd have used some double-sided tape to plant a cell phone on the undercarriage of his car. Later, after work hours, I could keep an eye on the cars location via the GPS, and it wouldn't be hard to work out where he works and lives. With that established, I could wait until he's off at work before entering the house, and installing a hidden camera in the ceiling above his keyboard. Analysis of the resulting footage would allow me to establish the username and password he uses to access various websites on the internet, which I would then use over the course of a single work-day (any longer and I risk being caught in the act) to systematically empty his bank accounts (donating the proceeds to welfare charities in his name, of course), order hundreds of incriminating, embarrassing or downright insulting things on e-bay, insult and alienate all his friends and family using his identity on social sites, and send threatening e-mails to the FBI, CIA and a bunch of similar organisations. And when the FBI proceeds to search his house, they find a load of stuff I had planted around the place earlier that day: home-made explosives, hundreds of dollars worth of weaponry including several RPG's and one helicopter minigun, several thousand marijuana plants, swastika's everywhere, occult symbology drawn in what turns out to be goat blood, illegal genetic experments trying to cross-breed people with fruit flies, and a DVD copy of the Matrix trilogy with a post-it note saying "the sequels were better than the original."
Oh, and then I'd post his personal details to 4chan.