Category Archives: funner times on the bus

An Excuse Me Excuses All

Posted by katie ett on June 28, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard
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Kamran and I were recently lamenting the loss of the phrase “excuse me” in NYC. I’ve heard people say that with this many people, it’s just impossible to say it to every single person you ram into on your way out of the subway, but I like to think that because I do say it to every single person I ram into, it keeps me from ramming into as many people. I can forgive people who are in a hurry, I suppose, but the one place where the lack of an “excuse me” really confounds me is the bus.

It’s one thing when I’m reading and not paying attention and someone doesn’t excuse himself before purposely bumping into my bag to teach me a lesson for (accidentally) letting it stick out too far off my shoulder behind me. That I can understand, because I’ve certainly done it myself. What confuses me is when the person next to me in the window seat needs me to move so he can get out but absolutely refuses to excuse himself. I’ll see the woman on my left putting away her phone and book, gathering her purse straps, and putting on her suit jacket, but when the bus stops, she’ll just sit there. Eventually, I’ll look over and ask, “Were you going to . . . get off?”, and she’ll look at me like it’s inconceivable that I might not have known for sure. A guy the other day didn’t say a word to get me to move but just stood up, and I thought, “Ugh, jerk,” but when I got up for him, he smiled and thanked me. What were there people going to do if I decided not to take the hint? Just sit there quietly until the bus doors closed and it was too late?

Well, this morning, a man entered through the front of the M15 SBS bus and then excused himself as he passed a few people in the center to make it back to his friends, who had come in through the middle door . . .

Read the tantalizing conclusion here and earn me a little cash money for your view in the process!

The Passive-Aggressive Patron of Seats

Posted by katie ett on April 26, 2012 – 11:30 am
Filed under funner times on the bus
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The following is an except from today’s Examiner.com post, which I admittedly only wrote because they threatened to give my column to someone else if I didn’t produce. But all of the great things are born of desperation, right? Like Weezer’s “Pork and Beans”, Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?”, or Rilo Kiley’s “It’s a Hit”. Okay, I have no idea if those last two were actually born of desperation at all, but the lyrics semi seem like it. Anyway, I kind of ended up liking this article, anyway.

A girl standing in front of me accidentally slapped my magazine and apologized. A boy scooting past me accidentally hit my knee and apologized. The woman next to me jabbed me with her elbow and apologized. Everyone was trying to maintain civility in the face of potential meltdown. Except for the person who had the most to apologize for, of course. She had a suitcase with her, which is annoying on the slowest of transportation days and outright repugnant on the busiest. So she was lurching that thing around at every stop as people asked her to move through clenched teeth. She stepped on my toes. She smacked me in the face with her Longchamp knockoff bag. She fell into my lap. She didn’t apologize. And I’m completely understanding of the fact that a crowded bus sometimes force you to touch people in ways you’d really prefer not to, but even when it’s not your fault, you have to apologize. It’s the only thing that separates us from the animals, other than our desire for designer knockoff bags.

Read the rest here!

The Time I Lost My Cool After the Biggest Jerk on the Bus Called Me Fat

Posted by katie ett on March 26, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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The last time we left our hero (yes, me), I had accidentally been engaged in a fight with a man so feebleminded that the only comeback he could produce to my most snide comment was, “You need to go on a diet!” I suppose he was one of those men who thinks the surest way to offend a lady is to insult her weight, but little did he know that I’ve achieved my current level of pleasant plumpness by enjoying dinners at the very finest restaurants in town with my beloved. I thought about returning the insult:

“I could lose weight, but you can’t lose ugly.”

“I could lose weight, but you’ll never get back your hair.”

“I could lose weight, but you’re stuck with that tiny–” Brain. Tiny brain.

But I figured that someone who isn’t clever enough to argue without immediately attacking outward appearance–pointing out that someone is black or gay or handicapped as if that person doesn’t realize it–isn’t worth my time, and I really didn’t want to lose any more of my cool, so I just said, “That’s very adult of you.”

“Keep stuffing your fat face, lady!” he called back from four rows away. “Maybe it’ll at least keep you quiet.”

I laughed, because at that moment, I was eating a low-carb, low-fat nutrition bar. It couldn’t have been more ironic.

Read the “exciting” conclusion here!

The Time the Biggest Jerk on the Bus Called Me Fat

Posted by katie ett on March 23, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, it's fun to be fat, living in new york sucks so hard
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I told you yesterday about my recent resolution to be Holly Happypants on the bus so that I might lead others to good behavior by my example. Well, everything was going swimmingly on the bus the next day, with me not blowing up at a high school kid who was propping his elbow up on my shoulder to help him hang onto the strap, me getting a really comfortable seat one stop after I got on, and the bus being generally uncrowded. By the time we got to Wall Street, there were only a handful of people left, so no one made anything of it when a man began making the longest and most obnoxious phone call.

He was clearly talking to a customer service representative at a company that deals in batteries and started the conversation by angrily demanding to know if they had his particular battery in stock, though he couldn’t actually name the battery. “The one MY radio takes,” he said, as if that was any help. He gave the person his name and phone number and told him or her that his radio looks like an iPod. And then he began berating the person, getting increasingly more aggressive:

“I’m so tired of you people not doing your jobs.”
“Do you have the battery or not?”
“I know YOU don’t know, so go find someone else who does.”
“What am I supposed to do–call back every day until you get the battery in?”
“You’re not educated enough for me to talk to.”
“Give me your supervisor.”
“I want to talk to your supervisor!”

Everything was repeated twice for emphasis and said in the loudest and rudest of voices in the sort of accent that Angelina from “Jersey Shore” had. It was unbearable and almost incredible that a human could talk to another human that way, but we were almost at my stop, and I had that whole pact with myself about trying extra hard to behave myself on public transportation, so I grabbed a nutrition bar from my bag and popped a chunk of it in my mouth to keep myself otherwise occupied.

Just then, the bus stopped at the traffic light before the turn into the Staten Island Ferry station, and people in the back started yelling. The bus has to wait at that light every single day, so there shouldn’t have been a problem, but that day was strange for some reason. Traffic had been inching along all the way down from 42nd Street, the sky was overcast with rain, and this guy had been literally yelling into his phone–the air was thick with tension.

Someone in the back was saying, “The light is green! THE LIGHT IS GREEN! GO, bus driver!” Hilariously, I realized it was the same lady from the day before who complimented my hair and whom I was glad I hadn’t been rude to before despite her totally deserving it.

People began yelling back at her: “The light’s red!” “Check your eyes!” “Be quiet if you don’t know what’s going on!” It was complete chaos, as if everything everyone had wanted to say to one another all morning and every morning was spewing out now.

Someone said, “Some people around here need to get driver’s licenses!”, and I believe she was talking to the woman who didn’t know the difference between a red and green light, but the guy who had been making the obnoxious phone call screamed out, “YEAH! ALL THESE BUS DRIVERS SUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

And at that point, it was just too much for me, and I said, “Oh, my gosh, shut up!” That’s not really a phrase I use, but it had been building up in me for ten minutes, and it came out without warning.

I had been talking into the ether, but I guess Obnoxious Phone Call Guy took it personally and said to me, “YOU shut up!”

Read the super-juicy ending here and get so mad both for me and at me!

The One Time I Didn’t Speak Up on the Bus Pays Off

Posted by katie ett on March 22, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york is neat, my uber-confrontational personality
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In theory, I love everything about public transportation, but in practice, there are those days when I just plain want to be left alone, when every sound anyone makes annoys me, when friendly conversation going on around me seems as grating as an alarm clock at 6 a.m. One of those days was a couple of months back, when a gaggle of older women were clucking around the front seats of the Select M15 bus, where I like to sit, finding something to say about everything. This one’s hair. That one’s purse. This one’s son. That one’s dog.

And then a lady from Australia or New Zealand (sorry that I can’t tell you apart, Aussies and Kiwis) got on the front of the bus and tried to use her MetroCard with the driver to pay, not knowing that you have to pay outside at the fare collectors on the sidewalk. The bus driver told her to stay on the bus to save time and to get off at the next stop to pay, and that set the ladies off on a race to determine who could say the most negative things about the way the Select Bus Service runs. I’m so used to riding the Select bus and being able to pay outside and enter through all three doors that I get confused as to why everything seems to be running so inefficiently when I find myself on a local, non-Select bus. Why are all of these people entering through the front door? Why are they all stopping by the driver, and why are we sitting for minutes at a time at every stop? Ohhhhh, right.

But after a year and a half of SBS service, apparently these women were still having a hard time coming to grips with the ease of use of the thing and took the opportunity to unload onto this poor, unsuspecting woman who nodded understandingly to all of them in turn and consoled them in her charming accent. I was going to speak up and ask them to pipe down, but I decided not to add to the hullabaloo and just quietly put on my headphones.

Then, just as we were pulling out of the bus stop one night this week, the woman in front of me turned and said, “Your hair is looking really good. I like it that way.” I said, “Oh, you see me on the bus often?” And then I realized that it was one of the ladies. The loudest one, the alpha complainer. I said, “Actually, I recognize you, too.” She asked, “You get on at 23rd Street in the mornings, right?”, and I told her my actual stop. “So you’ve seen me in the mornings?” I asked, adding, “I’ve seen you at night, but I’m always in such a trance in the mornings.” “Oh, please, I’m always still asleep,” she said, “but I sometimes see you, and you seem very nice.”

Read the rest here!