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

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

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!

“Survivor: One World”: Colton Goes Home with an Apendicitis and the World Rejoices

Posted by katie ett on March 21, 2012 – 10:50 pm
Filed under a taste for tv

Am I right in thinking that tonight’s “Survivor” ended in the only way it could in a perfect and just world? Colton Cumbie, the biggest jerk in “Survivor” history in my mind, went home with a suspected appendicitis after ensuring Christina all episode long that she was the next to go, that she had no friends, that she could wait out her sentence on the island or “jump in the fire” and end it for herself.


photo by CBS

I know that Russell Hantz is largely regarded as “Survivor”‘s most evil mastermind, but Colton was an even worse kind of awful: the kind who cried like the kid picked last on the playground when he was the only gay guy on a team full of macho men he assumed wouldn’t accept him and then became a snotty, snobby diva spewing hate the moment he didn’t have to fear being voted off every single week. At least Russell had the decency to be terrible all of the time. Watching Colton fall from grace—from a country club brat who laughed when he said the one black person he knows was the family’s servant to a wretch coiled up on the bare ground, hilariously thinking his stomach pain was constipation—felt so, so sweet.

And then he took the hidden immunity idol home with him to boot instead of passing it along to his closest ally (Alicia), the only person who took pity on him during his sickness (Christina, who is a princess among women), or one of his teammates for a future Tribal Council. I was amused by him for the first episode, I felt sorry for him for the second episode, and I wanted him full of gangrene by the third episode. If we see a future “Survivor: All Stars” with Colton in the cast, I’m out.

Still More About the California Trip We Took Seven Months Ago

Posted by katie ett on March 21, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under boobies, creepy boyfriend obsession, just pictures, travels

Southern California Trip

Remember how Kamran took me to visit his family in California last August and how I just barely blogged about it? Well, here’s the photodump from the trip that you haven’t been asking for:

Southern California Trip

We were mostly there for Kamran’s parents’ 40th anniversary, which was celebrated at Javier’s with grandchildren, steak, and my first Sprinkles cupcakes in the form of a cake that spelled out happy anniversary. I got the an:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

We visited Kamran’s friend Mike, who has a pool in his backyard like everyone else in California,

Southern California Trip

made eyes at the googly-eyed flowers in Kamran’s parents’ backyard,

Southern California Trip

and ate In-N-Out the first chance we got:

Southern California Trip

(There’s nothing more pleasurable to me than sitting in a drive-thru in a car after almost seven years of not driving.)

Southern California Trip

We met Kamran’s uncle at the Santa Monica Seafood café for ceviche, crab cakes, ciopino, and fish and chips (yes, even I ordered and enjoyed seafood (and by “seafood”, I mean “the batter and tartar sauce that goes on it”)):

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

And then went next door to Huckleberry Cafe for some suuuuuuuuuuperfine sweets, including a trifle and a fig that we stole off the tree out back and washed off in the bathroom(!!):

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Kamran’s uncle took us to a house he and his partner have been designing to perfection for 10+ years now that had this view:

Southern California Trip

We drove to San Diego to Balboa Park, which contains the San Diego Zoo, The Museum of Man, the Fleet Science Center, the Air & Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, and a buuuuuuuuuunch more:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

The architecture was amazing, and so was the weather. The entire time we were there, his parents didn’t need to turn on the air conditioning in their house. And this was August.

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

This is not a tiny fanny pack on Kamran’s hip but his camera case, so it’s fine:

Southern California Trip

At the Natural History Museum:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Kamran’s first 3-D movie (he was only pretending to not be excited for the camera):

Southern California Trip

A huge, bazillion-year-old tree outside the museum:

Southern California Trip

On the way back to Laguna, we passed the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which look like two boobs rising from the beach, and which Kamran . . .

Southern California Trip

well . . .

I think this is a good place to end this.

And This is Why All Dogs Should Be Kept in Strollers

Posted by katie ett on March 19, 2012 – 1:00 pm
Filed under my uber-confrontational personality, super furry animals

Kamran and I had failed to reserve a bigfancydinner for Saturday night, so we were doing a very romantic load of laundry at 10 p.m. in the basement of his apartment building. We stepped onto an elevator that already had two women and a little dog on it, and I smiled at both of the humans, and neither of them smiled back, but it’s sometimes hard to make your mouth muscles work in the two seconds you have between the time you notice someone smiling at you and that person looking away, so I didn’t hold it against them. They made some mundane talk behind us while Kamran and I chuckled over the fact that his laundry bag was splitting down the side seam so badly it was a wonder the thing could hold any clothes at all. (I tell you this little detail because it shows that I’m able to talk and laugh with at least one person in the world while I’m not busy abusing animals.)

I could see out of the corner of my eye that the dog was rarin’ to get out of the elevator, but Kamran and I were nearest to the door, so I let him step out first and then followed him, a little bit pleased at myself for making the dog wait. I feel the same way whenever I get into the bus in front of an overeager child who’s trying to go out of turn. I just need the excitement taken down a notch, you know?

But as soon as I stepped out of the elevator, the dog let out this horrendous howl/yelp/yip noise that hurt my ears, and I thought it was upset at me for cutting it off, so I turned around and just stared that thing down. I’m a little bit proud of how cold I can be sometimes, and I put every bit of cruelty I have into that glare. I wanted to show that little mangy rat who the alpha dog was. And it barked at me! It was kind of thrilling. I really felt like I’d threatened the thing and that it had felt it.

The elevators in Kamran’s building are rigged so that you take one set down to the lobby and another set down to the lower floors, so I stepped across to the other bank, where Kamran was already waiting. The owner of the dog told the other lady, “She stepped on his foot.”

I said from the other elevator, “No, I didn’t.”

She said, almost apologizing for me, “It was accidental.”

I leaned out the elevator door and said, “NO. I didn’t.”

And our elevator doors closed, and we rode to the laundry room in silence. While we unloaded the bag into the washers, my blood was still boiling, but I had this sudden, overwhelming feeling of guilt. I was only wearing flip-flops, so I’d think I’d feel a dog paw under my foot, but what if I hadn’t? What if I really had accidentally stepped on that dog, scrawny and yippy as it was? On one hand, Kamran’s building is overrun with dogs who get treated better than people and are allowed to sniff and lick whomever they want on the elevators at will, and it was the owner’s job to keep her dog back until the path was cleared, but on the other hand, I handled the situation so badly.

It would’ve been so easy just to say, “I really don’t think I stepped on the dog, but please accept my apologies just in case.” And the woman might have thought I was clumsy or reckless, but at least she wouldn’t have thought me a total DOG-HATING BITCH.