I boarded the 1-California yesterday afternoon, headed to see my physical therapist, and seated myself in one of the “backwards” facing rows toward the back of the bus – you know, the seats where you face another row of seats?
Oh, the humanity... And note my aggrieved forearm in close proximity to those layer-less tendrils...
At any rate, after a couple of stops, a young woman sat down next to me. Apparently, she doesn’t care to ride facing backwards (or maybe she was just a freak) – but whatever the reason, rather than sitting in the seat like a normal person and facing backwards, she sat facing to the side. I’m sure this was quite annoying to all of the passengers in the aisle, either standing or attempting to squeeze past her knees and legs in the aisle.
But what was even more annoying for me personally (and anything related to me personally is of greater import), was that her lank, far-too-long, scraggly, baby-fine hair was set aflutter at the merest hint of a breeze, thus coming into direct and repeated contact with my bare forearm, sending shudders of dread and disgust up and down my spine. Her hair didn’t seem especially filthy or lice-ridden – but I’m super-grossed out when a stranger’s hairs touch me. It’s awful…
I was tempted to move into the seat across from me – but then I’d have been sitting next to the typical a-hole male rider of public transit, who has to sit with his legs spread as wide as possible. Why do they do this? Is it to prove their virility? “Gee, my junk is so HUGE, I can’t put my legs together!”… I mean, my junk actually is huge and I manage to sit normally. Oh, and he was also reading a broadsheet-style newspaper wide open – apparently unfamiliar with the proper folding technique for reading the paper on the bus.
So, given a choice between being tormented by hair-touching or leg- and newspaper-touching, I chose the lesser of the two evils… But now I know how Odysseus must’ve felt when choosing between Scylla and Charibdis…
It's a Complete Outrage 