Wheeeeee doggie!
Let me just say here, as a lover of food, a person who could be defined, as my mother sometimes defined me, as “a good little eater”, that I embrace – nay, I lean fondly in and run loving eyes over many, many dishes of the culinary persuasion.
But man, the woman in front of me?
Her food stinks.
I mean, what is it? From my seat behind her, I lean forward in an attempt to identify an ingredient or two.
Unfortunately, the container is in her lap. To lean over any further would be to identify myself as someone who is, if you’ll excuse the expression, nosy.
And we wouldn’t want that.
The stink shall remain identified and, for the purposes of this document, accepted as both pungent and description-defying.
She eats it with her fingers, my little immigrant friend does.
And once again, from my seat on the bus, I am reminded of the cavemen.
What do you think that means, the number of times in a week that I think of cavemen? Because one cannot help but think of them, of their communal living quarters, from one’s seat on the bus. If I close my eyes, I can see the graffiti-ed walls, the piles of refuse. I can smell the old men and last night’s dinner. I can see the young ones bursting with hormones and energy.
And if I open my eyes, I can still see them.
The ability to turn a blind eye – or a blind nose – to the doings of others was probably essential in the caves, don’t you think? Just listen in for a moment:
Grok hit Maab again last night.
Bok was up all night coughing.
And Janet thinks no one’s noticed that rather than taking her trash with her when she goes that she just kicked it under a seat.
Meanwhile, back on the ol’ 17W, the woman in front of me licks her fingers furtively, her eyes on the rearview mirror at the front. Eating on the bus, after all, is frowned upon.
Maab no want to flaunt rules.
She gets off at the next stop and the stink goes with her.
I will never know what was in that Cool Whip container now.
I scratch my head, nod and grunt pleasantly at the man who sits next to me, and close my eyes and think of dinner.