28-September-2009 6:26PM

The bus arrives via one headlight illuminated out of two possible, like a great groaning and crawling Cyclops inching forward past the stop sign. Luckily, it pulls up to the front of the line where my neighbor and I stand, myself followed by G, the not-so-newbie, The Mobile Wife Fighter, as well as the Eccentric Ponytail Dude. The Brit is the only character besides G’s Estranged Brunette Burning Love with both with hands bent downward in concentration hovering like police helicopters over their perspective laps.

The next time I look up from my own concentrated subject, my eyes immediately land on a socially inept, pretentious, and poodle hairdo woman (these conclusions are drawn from an unfortunate row sharing experience at some precarious previous date) that sits forward like she’s ready to pounce on an unsuspecting prey, or that nothing at all must impede her gluttonous will.

Predictably, and with much proffered presumption I notice her snooping unscrupulously over her row companion’s reading materials for an indiscreet quantity of time. She’s probably exhaling that lurid and heaving breath of hers out through the mouth, rank as it rakes over a tongue recently soured by oxidation and enzyme fermentations of breakfast residue as is yet another of the subconscious ways to make her “imperious” presence known. I am fairly confident in the outcome regarding her that she will not move a muscle from her seat to make additional breathing room possible despite the fact that every other row has been emptied, effectively trapping her lorded-over victime dujour, who happens to be G's Estranged Brunette Burning Love of all people of the present.

This is one of the very reasons I blockade myself in any one row to impede entrance, for the corrosion from said acerbic pseudo savoir faire has limited the effective temperament of my psyche in such a way that rubber bands and paperclips are the metaphors of choice to describe its current binding.