At least one of us has a sense of humor
On the bus the other day, I ended up having to take the last seat, which was next to a hipster-ish looking young lady in a purple, sack-of-taters cotton dress from American Apparel and hipster hair. I made a polite smile at her as she nervously looked at me and parked myself next to her for the ride home, which takes about thirty minutes from Downtown to Northgate.
Hey sister: could have been worse: at least I showered today and my clothes were washed before my wearing them, which is more than most of the people who are getting on the bus on 3rd can say.
We're getting close to that whole Denny mess when the bus pulls over, stops, and the bus driver mumbles something like "urrnurnnnerneroneminutenernneruur" over the speaker system, then gets off the bus. He hurriedly walks across the sidewalk, straight into a tavern; the whole bus sees this.
!!! This is comedic gold! Not only is it comedic gold, but it's also scary!
"Huh, well, this isn't a good sign, now is it?" I say in a muted tone to the girl to my right. In the window, I can see her shift nervously, as though I am about to follow it up with a serial-killing.
See, if I had said something like, "Oh no. Ninja Turtle bim-bam shooglemoogle!" or some other perplexingly BS non-sequitur that all of us early-to-mid 20-somethings think is dripping in wit here, she probably would have giggled profusely and then we could have had a mumbled, no-eye-contact conversation about fixed-gear bicycles and designer cupcakes, culminating in wordless sex. Nine months from now, she could send me an email that this encounter had resulted in a small, tow-headed child swaddled in polar fleece, with asperger's syndrome and an allergy to peanuts (sent from my iPhone).
But no: I made an observation, and I verbalized it in an attempt to "lighten the mood," as they say in cities where people talk to one another without the aid of a computer or Blackberry, and as a result, I made the poor lass feel uncomfortable. I always forget: going out in public in Seattle is not an agreement to interact with other human beings.