the wheels on the bus..
Jan. 6th, 2006 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transomwhiplassIn the spirit of preparing my body to return to school hours, I put myself to bed before midnight yesterday (hello, 8 AM classes..) and woke up before noon. After keeping vampire hours over break (like 3PM - 5 AM), I really have to get myself back on a schedule. I think I'm already recovered from my flight, flying West is much easier than going the opposite direction in terms of time zones. Annnyway, as interesting as that is..
I had to run a few errands and because of the distance, I was required to take the good ol' public transportation system - cheap as free and good for the environment! :D So I'm waiting at the station and there is this woman SCREAMING bloody murder, I turn to check out the situation and she's being physically restrained by some dude from assaulting the LTD official. She continued to scream, kick, and just generally cause a huge scene well after I left - by that point she was trying to assault the police officer questioning her. So that was an interesting 20 minutes. I ran my errand and then jumped on a bus back to the station. The bus I took happened to detour through Bertelson (totally out of the way, but I didn't feel like waiting for the right bus outside in the rain). At the beginning I was the only person on the bus, at the station the bus was full. Midtrip we were driving through some neighborhood and the bus driver pulled up to a stop and there were these people staring at the ground - apparently some guy waiting for the bus fell down (right before we got there) and proceeded to have a seizure (while we were there) so we waited for an ambulance/fire truck to arrive before we went back on our way. A few stops later, we picked up this woman and a teenage girl who I believe had just met at the bus stop. They were chatting behind me about bad bus experiences when the woman started telling the girl about this encounter she had with a guy late at night, he tried to talk to her and when she didn't want to say anything he started calling her horrible names. All of the sudden, the guy behind them was like "that was me" - I thought he was joking just to jump into the conversation (ironic because this woman was pretty much saying she abhorred talking to strangers on the bus), she was laughing so I think she thought it was a joke too. Suddenly, he started saying "I was just trying to put you at ease" and she sharply replied that "why would he think she wasn't at ease and take it upon himself to set her at ease" or something like that. It escalated to this heated argument and it was overall really creepy. The woman kept saying "I feel seriously stalked, I think I need to change my usual route." Not to mention, but the whole time (from the stop after mine to the very end) there was this old, skeezy dude eyeing me the entire time from across the aisle. It really creeped me out but I was too far away from anywhere to just get off and if I did I was worried he was going to follow me.
I had a long conversation with myself in my head about my gender studies class last winter and how lame it was that certain males have the power to just fuck with women's saftey boundaries just by staring at or talking to them. No feminist rant right now though.. it's story time. The bus experience also prompted this memory of second grade right after I moved to Houston. My neighbor behind us was named Stephen Sherman. I'm pretty shy now around people, but I was pretty cocky back in the day - from the urban landscape of Chicago to the suburbs of Houston I wasn't really intimidated when I first moved. I don't remember how it happened, but some how I set Stephen Sherman off and he actually strangled me and shook me. I don't really remember why but I remember not being really freaked out or intimidated by the situation - I just thought it was totally bizarre that someone would actually strangle me in public. Eventually some other person made him stop, I think it was either Stephen Dennis or Anthony Scruggs (funny because I had weird little childhood relationships with both of them later on). It wasn't till much later that I realized that Stephen Sherman was probably the closest thing to a bully that I've ever encountered in my life. I wasn't really scared of him though so it didn't actually work - I just thought he was seriously strange and disturbed. Anyway, that was funny to me because it happened on the school bus - I was actually physically attacked and it didn't scare me, but here I was being looked at and I was practically ready to pee my pants. It's funny how life perspective changes like that...
I had to run a few errands and because of the distance, I was required to take the good ol' public transportation system - cheap as free and good for the environment! :D So I'm waiting at the station and there is this woman SCREAMING bloody murder, I turn to check out the situation and she's being physically restrained by some dude from assaulting the LTD official. She continued to scream, kick, and just generally cause a huge scene well after I left - by that point she was trying to assault the police officer questioning her. So that was an interesting 20 minutes. I ran my errand and then jumped on a bus back to the station. The bus I took happened to detour through Bertelson (totally out of the way, but I didn't feel like waiting for the right bus outside in the rain). At the beginning I was the only person on the bus, at the station the bus was full. Midtrip we were driving through some neighborhood and the bus driver pulled up to a stop and there were these people staring at the ground - apparently some guy waiting for the bus fell down (right before we got there) and proceeded to have a seizure (while we were there) so we waited for an ambulance/fire truck to arrive before we went back on our way. A few stops later, we picked up this woman and a teenage girl who I believe had just met at the bus stop. They were chatting behind me about bad bus experiences when the woman started telling the girl about this encounter she had with a guy late at night, he tried to talk to her and when she didn't want to say anything he started calling her horrible names. All of the sudden, the guy behind them was like "that was me" - I thought he was joking just to jump into the conversation (ironic because this woman was pretty much saying she abhorred talking to strangers on the bus), she was laughing so I think she thought it was a joke too. Suddenly, he started saying "I was just trying to put you at ease" and she sharply replied that "why would he think she wasn't at ease and take it upon himself to set her at ease" or something like that. It escalated to this heated argument and it was overall really creepy. The woman kept saying "I feel seriously stalked, I think I need to change my usual route." Not to mention, but the whole time (from the stop after mine to the very end) there was this old, skeezy dude eyeing me the entire time from across the aisle. It really creeped me out but I was too far away from anywhere to just get off and if I did I was worried he was going to follow me.
I had a long conversation with myself in my head about my gender studies class last winter and how lame it was that certain males have the power to just fuck with women's saftey boundaries just by staring at or talking to them. No feminist rant right now though.. it's story time. The bus experience also prompted this memory of second grade right after I moved to Houston. My neighbor behind us was named Stephen Sherman. I'm pretty shy now around people, but I was pretty cocky back in the day - from the urban landscape of Chicago to the suburbs of Houston I wasn't really intimidated when I first moved. I don't remember how it happened, but some how I set Stephen Sherman off and he actually strangled me and shook me. I don't really remember why but I remember not being really freaked out or intimidated by the situation - I just thought it was totally bizarre that someone would actually strangle me in public. Eventually some other person made him stop, I think it was either Stephen Dennis or Anthony Scruggs (funny because I had weird little childhood relationships with both of them later on). It wasn't till much later that I realized that Stephen Sherman was probably the closest thing to a bully that I've ever encountered in my life. I wasn't really scared of him though so it didn't actually work - I just thought he was seriously strange and disturbed. Anyway, that was funny to me because it happened on the school bus - I was actually physically attacked and it didn't scare me, but here I was being looked at and I was practically ready to pee my pants. It's funny how life perspective changes like that...
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 06:15 pm (UTC)I'm impressed that you had so many freaky experiences in one day - but just think of all the gas you're not burning. I doubt anyone will be strangling you on the bus anymore.
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Date: 2006-01-09 05:27 pm (UTC)