1.) Stop biting nails.
2.) Stop being so sarcastic.
3.) Read every book by Toni Morrison.
4.) Learn to cook some kind of basic meal I could cook every day for a month.
5.) Stop being annoyed with people I don’t even know.
The most interesting part of this list of New Year’s resolutions is that there are only two goals on that list I can even imagine meeting: Numbers 3 and 5. Since I found our school library has all of Toni Morrison’s books, I’m slowly making my way through them all. Number five will be a little harder, though. It has not been so bad in the past, but when I started going to school here and I had to take a bus to the city, it’s been pretty hard. I get annoyed with normal people who get on the bus every morning and afternoon.
There are regulars who are on the same time I am every day, and I’ve learned to get used to those people. Like the woman with a hacking cough that could make anyone sick on the bus; that girl from the neighborhood who plays her techno music louder than the radio the bus driver plays; then there’s the guy who falls asleep every morning. One day I swear I could see him drooling. Yes, these people are like family to me now. Oh dear, home, sweet home.
However, it’s the variety of people I come in contact with everyday that gets on my nerves…
It’s a routine I have each morning and afternoon (I’m actually equally tired at both points): I climb up the stairs of the bus (the stairs that I, amazingly, have not yet fallen down), stick my bus card in the slot thing that beeps back at me telling me to, kindly, find a seat. I try to plop down on a seat with no one in the one next to it. It’s usually an open space for a little while but, as the bus stops at yet another line of people I can tell my moments alone are numbered: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine people! There are not many seats left. Oh man…
One girl sits next to me one day smelling like pot. How do I know it’s pot? I didn’t until that sickly, sweet smell was stuck to my clothes for the rest of the day. My friends told me what it probably was. Oh great.
Then there’s that one lady who came on the bus with her little (beloved) dog she kept talking to for the entire 50 minutes. I was trying to read Toni Morrison’s book, Ruby, and that book takes concentration or else you have to start over. I think I kept reading the same paragraph over and over that whole bus trip.
The worst and most annoying that any person can do on the bus is talk on their cell phone. This is something I have actually no right to be annoyed about since cell phones were made to be used out of the home, and people can talk to whoever they want. It’s not my business; let them all talk away. It’s fine, but it still makes me want to bang my head against the window. Especially when one girl was sitting next to me and had a cell phone with earphones so no one knew when she was calling. All of a sudden she starts talking to me. Well, I thought it was to me, but when she started to call me “Honey” and “Sweety” I looked at her funny. Ha! She was talking to her boyfriend. I looked around and saw I was not the only one startled by such a romantic conversation at that volume. Ok, just a normal conversation, I thought. but then I thought, please don’t let her be one of those girlfriends that – but it was too late.
“Ok, bye honey, I love you. Yes, bye. OK, kiss, kiss. Yep, I’ll see you tonight. Aw, I love you, too, Sweetie. Oh, you too. OK, goodbye. I love you.” Three more minutes of her LOVEly conversation and she was done. I thought the whole bus would start clapping.
So, now after getting that out of my system, I can promise you all that there are people I like having on the bus. I’ll get back to you with more positive insights on life around me. Happy New Year!
Know a good place to buy earplugs? Or want to send a friendly hello?
Contact:
flickafrancaise@yahoo.com
Angelika Guy
Huginvgen 12, SE- 715 31 Odensbacken, Sweden, airmail
Send questions/comments to the editors.
