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)When you’ve retired to the middle of nowhere to live off the fat of the land and you don’t drive, your activity options are severely limited.
There’s mucking out the chicken shed, downright torturous during the current heatwave. If you’ve ever inhaled the aroma of sun-baked chicken shit, you’ll know what I mean. Then there’s watering a multi-acre garden using hoses that have been enthusiastically re-engineered by hounds, leaving one soaked from head to toe, questioning one's life choices.
But perhaps the most uncomfortable activity of all is taking the bus to Dublin to visit friends. The bus itself is comfortable enough, but when you’re as smugly slim as I am and only occupy half a seat, you become an irresistible magnet for every oversized passenger in the county. On they trundle and down beside me they plop, sprawling and spilling over onto my seat. And they always bring a picnic.
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) I’ve never quite figured out whether they carry food because they’re fat, or they’re fat because they carry food everywhere they go. Yes, I could place my bag on the seat beside me, but I consider that the height of discourtesy.
I’m old enough to remember when people could get from A to B without clutching a coffee, a fizzy drink, and one of those new-fangled wrap things. Nobody fainted from hunger or died of thirst. Imagine that!
In all my born days, I’ve never eaten on a bus or in the street. It simply isn’t seemly, and I am the epitome of etiquette and decorum. I haven’t got an inappropriate or insensitive bone in my body.
If I were king, outdoor eating would require a table, and snacking on public transport would carry the death penalty. In fact, I might go full airline mode with passengers weighed on entry and excessively portly persons obliged to purchase additional seats.
Only kidding. That would be insensitive. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience prompt asking ' What activity in your life would you say you're the most uncomfortable doing and why? What could you do to improve that situation?
The images are mine
Comments (10)
When I was in high school I had to take a public bus (long ride) to school. I liked the bus ride, except for the ever-present possibility that some piggy man would sit next to me. I think these creeps prowled around public transport looking for kids to abuse. I wasn't inclined to curse, or challenge, unless I had to. My remedy? A large clarinet case. I would place it on my lap so it intruded on the seat next to me. If a creep sat down, I would essentially stab him in the side. Passive aggressive? Oh yes. But very effective. The creep was powerless. He couldn't challenge me without giving away his scheme and he was effectively neutered. Creeps didn't stay long in that seat.
Hahaha. A genius ploy. I can play piano of course, but I wouldn't fancy trying to get one on the bus:)
😂
I played the French horn, which took up so much room I usually had to leave it up by the driver on the school bus.
Oh my! Memories. Something that specific brings it back, doesn't it?
Not for the first time, your writing does me like The Dickens. I am sitting right down with you, a sweaty thigh pressing into me, a pungent flavor in my mouth, praying (yes praying) that I don't attract crumbs. AND hilarious!
Excellent play on sensitivity, and who gets what these days.
You could get a horse and cart, couldn't you? Perhaps stop growing enough food for 98 or so more than you have to produce food for? Move here. Go Amish. You could get away with that for a few years longer than you can get away with what you are doing in Ireland, the new home of Rosie O'Donnell.
I love this post!
Oh joy! Rosie O'Donnell. Just what we need, more lesbians with autistic, non-binary children! Sure aren't we crying out for them here. I thank you for the kind comment and reblog, though I must declare some slight disappointment that you do not have a homeopathic remedy for my problem. It seems that going Amish might be the only solution:)
Conventional medicine would no doubt have a remedy for your condition; thorazine, lobotomy and bloodletting into a comatose state would all work. We homeopaths try not to make the patient far sicker, especially when the condition is not pathological. You are OK. That is my official diagnosis of your problem.
Hahaha I never noticed that attraction from fat people of bus, I need to check it!
I've never seen anyone actually eating on a bus or tram here
Indeed btw, the chicken shit has a never forgetting smell, you can recognize it in a mile
Perhaps you're just not slim enough !
I am underweight 🤣 but tall, maybe it's that
Tall? Oh no...that's almost as bad as fat:)
Hahaha not exaggerated, 1,87m
I absolutely cackled my way through this🤣 Your storytelling is sharp, unapologetically honest, and wildly entertaining,, even when you're elbow-deep in rural reality or dodging hose sabotage from rogue hounds. The imagery alone is gold. And your bus chronicles? Spot on.. There's a fine art to public transport survival, and you've clearly mastered it,, though I must say, the idea of "airline mode" boarding gave me both a laugh and a slight chill. 😂 Your wit is cutting, but there's always a wink behind it, which makes it all the more enjoyable. Tiny tip,, keep a decoy bag for the seat if needed..😄 Etiquette can make room for sanity now and then. 😉 Looking forward to your next rant,, I mean, reflection @deirdyweirdy.😁
What a raving review! Thank you very much. My head is so big now that I'll be buying an extra seat to accommodate it:)
Haha, cracked me up. You and I should collaborate on the "rules of life" manual.
What a splendid idea...that would be quite a tome:)
Yeah, many rules for the minions to adhere to.
Well they can't say we don't lead by example! We'd have paradise in a week.
A week at most!
I have just traveled for a long time in public transport and it is a fact that the people traveling there, especially the fat people, bring their food with them and eat it in it because when we become fat, our food also increases and they do not feel bad about it at all and are living their daily routine.
You'd SO hate Ecuador :-D Everything is by bus here, and at every stop you have 1-3 merchants jump into the bus to sell food and drinks. Water/Cola and crisps are the "okay" stuff, but there are those with deep-fried-meats with garlic sauce, sandwiches that smell like onion-egg-fart, and so on. Together with the either over-use or abstinence of deodorants, it turns you into a dog wanting to stick your head out of the window. Only that it'd probably be chopped off during the imminent maneuver to overtake the competing bus, passing at 5cm distance, turning the 6m wide road into a 3-lane-highway. Needless to say, one gets used to anything.
I traveled by bus to see my kid for a long time. I always ate at the stops, except for the long haul - that was a 12h ride from Quito to Loja, overnight, luckily. I learned quite a few tricks about bussing doing so, and one a I can't recommend enough: Always have a little bit of mint oil or similar available to drug and protect your nose.
Even if I bathed in mint oil I couldn't stand 12 hours on a bus. You can drive from one end of Ireland to the other in five.
One can get used to anything in the name of love! (Gonna call those mills folks now...)
Ha, yes, being close to people on buses is definitely a no from me. Gross.
You know the students at school carry one litre water bottles with them. They ask to get a drink in class if they forgot to fill it up and I always say no. They absolutely will survive the rest of the lesson without water. I am sure it has been done before.
Thanks for the first graff image. I'm having one of those fucking days. I'm not quite seeing it as sexy, but at least the image reminds me it's kinda legit to feel this way and still not suck as a person.
Do you check those litre bottles? There's probably vodka in them:)
I had one of those days a couple of weeks ago when I had a friend staying. Devil Dog bit her, the power went belly up, I lost 2 chucks to a fox, 2 deliveries went missing, one of them milk, and all during a crazy heatwave with temperatures reaching 30C.
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