Summer is coming to a close.  Being a free agent sans benefits but without having to commit to the hassle of piss-poor work environs (benefits will come soon… I’m hopeful)- I’ve had the pleasure (but not really in some instances) of working at a myriad of non-profit organizations, which found me taking different bus routes for weeks or months at a time.  Summer’s end also marks the end of the foolatry and fuckery that unfolds during this season’s most sweltering days… which seems to wrap folks up in a tight bear-hug and squeeze it out of them… causing them to act the fool and roam the city’s streets terrorizing the poor, unsuspecting masses.

The bus is no different.  The last most interesting ride found an irate Pop-pop wanting to beat the foolatry out of a “punk in a vest.”  Last week, I found myself evading an unwanted suitor, who hasn't a pot to piss in or a window to toss it out of, who I seem to not be able to avoid, no matter which route I take or which neighborhood I stride around. Spied behind a ubiquitous pair of large, dark shades, on a crowded bus towards the back … I hurriedly sat toward the front and hustled my ear-plugs in, turning up the music… pretending not to hear him “pssting” my name from the back and hitting the DECLINE button when he had the gall to call me ... from the back of the bus.  Alas, to no avail, because he stayed seated, bypassing his own stop waiting for me to get off further down from my usual stop in an attempt to avoid him.  He followed me off and made one last ditch effort to ask me out on a date. "When are we going to get to hang out?" he wondered. Quickly reminding myself that this individual is car-less, has no apparent place of employment or any desire to be gainfully employed at one, and full of shit I replied, "I honestly don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon. Sorry, I'm busy." He opened his mouth to respond to my rebuff, but triumph came in the form of my connecting bus just then.  

Also, apparently, I’m not the only local woman he’s attempting to run his sad, twisted game on.  Women... we talk whilst in the throes networking and becoming acquainted. We have a keen sense of recognition once someone is described. 

Word travels at about 299,792,458 meters per second, the same as the speed of light. So give it up, because your scam is up. No one wants to date a deadbeat in this day and age, where people are trying to come up in this struggling economic climate. If you want to court accordingly, drop the act about working and being in school and stop being mediocre. That is all.  In any event, here is a hodgepodge of conversations overheard on the bus, to close out the summer …

Man, with a black patch over his eye ranting loudly on (and off) his cell phone: “… Bus driver!! Can you stop the bus before you that came?? I left a brown paper bag on there! My ID, money and everything is in that bag!!”  *Editor’s note: Because carrying your ID and money in a brown paper bag is a wise and common thing to do.

Bus driver:  “What was the number of the bus you got off of?”

Eye patch:  “I’ounknow! It was the one that came before you!!” *Editor’s note:  The driver is psychic, so he can automatically determine which and where…

Bus driver, indifferently: “I can’t help you if you can’t tell me the number of the bus you just got off of…”

Eye patch hurriedly gets on the phone, and starts ripping someone named Debra a new one… “This is all your fault!!! If I didn’t go to pick up your damn hairspray, I wouldn’t’ve left the bag on the bus!!!! My ID, your hairspray… EVERYTHING is in that paper bag! Damn man!! I went to pick up YOUR hairspray!!! Look! I’m on another bus now! I’m trying to track it down! Shit! Look, do you want me to come and see you or not???!!!” …

Meanwhile towards the back of the bus, girl with thick Hartford accent opins: “Yeah, she’s a dumb bitch! That’s why I don’t talk to her. It’s not my fault her son’s father calls me! …“

Eye patch, on the phone to a friend: “… Yeah, if I didn’t have to go pick up her hairspray, I wouldn’t’ve lost my damn ID. EVERYTHING is in that bag!! Wait a minute… she’s dating him? That’s not what she told me! She must be lyin’ because when I axed her if she was single, she said she wasn’t involved with nobody. Well, he must be gettin’ punked then.  Or either she lyin’  I mean, I’m not interested in her anyway, but I was just wonderin’ if she had a boyfriend… she claimed she didn’t. …”  *Editor’s note:  Debra would NOT approve. 

The sounds of summer… I laughed, I side-eyed, I threw major shade, I felt like crying, I gagged from the noxious odors emanating from mouths and unwashed bodies… I’m feeling a sense of nostalgia already. …