Cool Kids Sit in the Back

Sometimes public transportation is difficult. I take it every day and it's been a pretty reliable, decent means of getting around in all the various cities I've lived. It's always a good thing to do in terms of financial savings vs. gas prices, environmental benefits that come with mass transit, yada yada and all that stuff. When it becomes difficult is when other passengers become characters in your blog.

You see, it's hard to be blog-worthy if you're a normal, innocuous, unnoticed mass transit rider. But if you're annoying, loud, have strange bodily odors, or any other irritating attributes you jump right past those boring folks to the realm of bloggable. Miami has a bus/train system that runs pretty well. The buses go practically everywhere and they're cheap. The trains leave something to be desired, but you can't have everything. I haven't had too many strange/awful/disturbing experiences on Miami's buses. Friday was an exception.

Picture this: I'm on the bus at 8:30AM on the way to work. It's early. Usually at that hour most people are chilled out and trying to keep themselves in "sleep mode" until they arrive at their prospective stops and are forced to deal with the wide awake reality of work. Sometimes you'll have the occasional drunk, loud cellphone talker, or stinky stinkerton, but most of the time it's a fine ride. There are two men, however, who I've labeled "the starers". One looks like a dead-ringer for Anthony Williams - mayor of DC, and the other looks like Placido Domingo's brother. They both stare at me every day. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, as the only white person on the bus, I'm a bit of a curiosity. Plus, I'm young and kinda cute, so I guess the combination is irrisistable. Whatever the reasons, they make no effort to hide the fact that they stare at me. It's a Miami latin male thing. There seems to be a complete lack of the social filter that tells most people that it's disturbing to be stared at. I usually ignore it. Sometimes I'll make direct eye contact and stare back to see what they do.

Friday morning I'm on the bus and the Placido Domingo gets on and sits behind me. Great, I think. He's staring at the back of my head right now, I can feel it. He leans forward and taps me on the shoulder. He says hello (spewing a smelly cloud of bad morning breath right at my face), introduces himself (Ali from Colombia), and in very broken English proceeds to tell me his life story and ask me questions ever though I turn around several times to face front. He seems nice enough. I decide that I'm probably being a little snobbish and turn back around to talk to him a bit. Through the course of our seemingly polite conversation I learn that he's 54, he has a 28 yr old daughter (well, I'm 28 as well, isn't that neat-o), he got married when he was 24, his family is still in Colombia, he's going there next month to renew his visa and he'll be there until June (which is now a very good thing), and he works in telemarketing (should have been a red flag right there). Several minutes of chit chat later he asks me how old I am and I tell him I'm the same age as his hija. He asks me if I'm married. No, I say, but I live with mi novio. Then it gets weird...

He says (remember - very broken English, and yet he knows how to get this concept across with little difficulty) that age doesn't matter and his wife is in Colombia and it could just be sex. What could just be sex? Oh for shizzle my nizzle, I realize he means me & him. Gross. First reaction - disgust. Second reaction - amusement. I laugh and turn around. No, really, he tries to convince me that we could have great sex. Um, I think you're stoned or something, back off and leave me alone. He tells me I have very sexy hair and that he looks at me every day. No shit, I say, it's not like I'm blind you assfuck. After several more exchanges he leaves me alone. I get off the bus w/o further incident.

Which brings us to this morning. And I'll have to wait for that part because I have to go catch the bus home. Good times, good times. Stay tuned, it gets better...