There's No 'Bus' in 'Bathroom'
Erin Douglass
There are some who ride the bus who think it's nothing but a four-wheeled, loosely scheduled bathroom. Never mind the bad lighting. Never mind the jostling, pot-hole-rich ride. Never mind the fact that mere inches separate one passenger from the other, erasing any possibility of privacy.
People will do just about anything in a vehicle not their own.
Take the mothers tending to their offspring. I realize that there is Ongoing Kid Maintenance that comes with the parenting territory: hair combing, nose blowing, hand wiping, Band-Aid ripping. Kids have needs, and they are usually now.
But nail clipping? The other morning I was roused from my drowsing by a metallic chirping. No, I thought to myself, as the fog cleared and I checked for drool. Not nail clippers. Sure enough, the bright white ends of a toddler's fingernails were falling to the floor like a plague of tiny locusts.
Ick.
And I ask: who hasn't witnessed the Makeup Girls? With the fierce resolve of storm-tossed ship captains, they apply blush, powder, shadow, even lip liner as we bounce downtown. The piece de resistance? Le mascara. I hope she doesn't mind wearing an eye patch, I think to myself, as one of the more prolific Makeup Girls unsheathes her silver wand and prepares to lengthen and define.
But no, like the rest of her well-groomed sisterhood, she doesn't poke an eye out or even give her forehead a black smear. Instead, she wraps up her work, zips up the makeup bag and hauls out an enormous hairbrush to start those 200 strokes that guarantee silky, healthy hair.
And a pile of strands on my lap and the seat.
Um, hello?
And then there's Ear Wax Man. I've seen him three or four times now on the evening bus. He always sits in the front-most spot, in view of the driver's profile and the humming road. You'd think that alone would be sufficient entertainment, but apparently it's not.
Typically, once the man is seated, he'll pull a stack of linty tissues from somewhere on his person. With absentminded care, he'll rip off a piece, wrap it around the tip of his pinky and then take the aural plunge.
After three or four minutes of vigorous scraping and vibrating, the pinky will emerge. The man will examine the tip, before unceremoniously flicking the waxy wad onto the floor. By the time his stop arrives, tissues flakes have gathered about his feet like movie snow.
Gross.
I understand we're all pressed for time and multi-tasking like squirrels. But people, please. The next time you feel the urge to create a Q-tip from the morning paper, stop a moment and think.
We're all in this together.
And if that still doesn't stop you: bring a drop cloth.