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Thursday, November 04, 2004 Last Friday: me, up at 4 p.m. Wrapping up loose ends -- a non-stop stream of detail work that took me right up to the moment I went out the door and into town to hop a bus south. A good day for a bus ride south, as it turned out -- a golden late-autumn day, Montpelier showing a surprising amount of late-season color, the air warming from early-hour frigidity to sweeter, kinder levels. The bus: less than three-quarters full, allowing a fair number of riders two seats to stretch out in. At White River Junction, an hour south of Montpelier, we had to switch over to another bus, one already crowded, leaving few vacant seats, me sliding my adorable butt into the last available window number, leaving four or five vacant aisle seats, one of them next to me. The other passengers next to a vacant seat filled them with coats, bags, whatever might suggest 'Dude, don't even think of sitting here!' to a seatless traveler seeking a perch. I didn't. The result: a tall, beefy cadet wearing Norwich University dress grays -- someone who'd taken over two seats on the previous bus in an aggressive way that said 'sit next to me? as if!' -- approached, asking loudly, voice edged with attitude, "Is that seat taken, sir?" (Any time anyone addresses me as sir, I get the impulse to look around, see who the hell they're actually talking to, then tell them to knock the sir shit off.) I said no, he sat, his body large enough that it partially blocked the aisle, the duffel bag he dropped there completing the blockage. During the switch between buses, he'd run to a nearby McDonalds, returning with a large drink that he now held in his left hand (the hand next to me). He pushed the back of his seat rearward, extended his legs out into the aisle, put a walkman on, closed his eyes, fell asleep. His mouth slowly dropped open, snores starting up as the big body relaxed in small, spasmodic twitches. Which is when I noticed the big soft-drink cup slipping gradually over in my direction, its plastic cover the only thing preventing its contents from running out on seats/floor/me. I poked snoring cadet a few times on the arm. No response. Poked him some more. Still no response. Looked out the window at the scenery, debating whether or not to escalate the poking to shaking, smacking, pulling walkman headset off to yell into ears. When I glanced back, his arm had completely relaxed, the cup tilted over, its top sprang off, soda poured out onto the floor -- amazingly, only enough reaching me to dampen the sole of my shoes. Waking with a start, the cadet jumped to his feet, apologizing for the mess, not appearing to know what to do. I suggested grabbing something to mop up the liquid, he ducked into the bus's portosan, reappearing empty-handed, the bus company apparently having decided stocking toilet paper was not a priority. He went and spoke with the driver, returned with three facial tissues, which had as much effect as a sponge trying to clean out Lake Michigan. After sopping up what he could, the cadet tossed the dripping result into the portosan, sat down, plugged headset back into ears, closed his eyes once more. Relative silence descended, broken only by the sound of surrounding passengers trying to pull their shoes free of the slowly drying soda's adhesive effect. [continued in next entry] Madrid, te quiero. rws 10:16 AM [+]
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