Back Post # 4 - Srsly #1

So when I was brainstorming for ways to try to keep my blog fresher, I thought I would try to limit myself to rants, because, really - who likes a whiner? But I'm not always a bowl of sunshine, and I figured at least once a week, I would allow myself a bitch post where I could regale some tiny snippet of my life that irked me. And I would name this series of posts exactly what I was thinking during that little snippet: Srsly. (Okay, in some cases it might be: Srsly?, but you get the point.)

Without further ado, here's #1:I work a full time job in downtown Seattle, but two days a week, I hop on a bus in the middle of the day and go to the UW campus at the North end of Lake Washington for class. Now, I'm not complaining. Not by a long shot. This is one of the highlights of my week. I get to break up the day, listen to my iPod on the way, and it's one of the few times a week I take myself out to lunch, because, well . . . the rest of the week I'm glued to my chair and computer screen.

So, there I am, sitting in tunnel, enjoying my custom-stuffed Chipotle burrito, foot-tapping to Pork and Beans and in my own little private 'world away from work'.

Now, when someone is wearing headphones, and making quite an effort not to pay attention to what's going on around them, you'd assume people would leave them alone, right? Apparently this rule does not apply in bus tunnels. Or to crazy people. I hate, repeat HATE, when people make you take your headphones off so they can ask you some inane question. But it happens. Every. Time.

This guy walks up and starts talking at me. And he's a bum. Seattle bum, mind you - wearing a newish Columbia Sportswear jacket and carrying a Venti from Starbux - but a bum none the less. He's dirty, he smells bad, and the bottom half of his considerable and hairy gut is hanging out from the underside of his shirt.

And he's talking at me.

I could ignore him, but for some reason, I just don't have it in me to be *that* rude. So I take out one headphone, and he says, "Can I have that to eat?"

I take out the other headphone and finish chewing before I sputter, "What?"

"Can I have that to eat?" he says again, smacking his lips.

I look down at the burrito in hand, suddenly less appetizing than it was before. But still, it's mine. I've gnawed on it. It has my cooties on it. And this fat, latte-carrying bum is asking for it right out of my hand? It's not like I was about to throw it away!

"Uh . . . I'm eating it," I say. I mean, c'mon - the guy didn't look hungry.

"I hate it when the forks and spoons are mixed," he says conversationally and sits down beside me. The smell, at this point, does in the rest of my appetite. The bus pulls up.

I surrendered the burrito, and hopped onto my getaway, thinking, "I wonder what he would do with a spork?" And watching the fat, happy bum nosh on my lunch, with his probably pilfered latte in the other hand. Whether he was really that crazy or not, I have to admit, his technique worked. I mean, who can say no to that?

Srsly.