{"id":2850,"date":"2009-01-16T14:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T14:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2009\/01\/16\/moments-when-i-suck\/"},"modified":"2009-01-16T14:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T14:23:00","slug":"moments-when-i-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2009\/01\/16\/moments-when-i-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"moments when I suck"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/foxtongue\/3199894591\/\" title=\"365 2009: 15.01.09 by Foxtongue, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3343\/3199894591_c64c22b711_m.jpg\" width=\"192\" height=\"240\" alt=\"365 2009: 15.01.09\" \/><br \/>\n365 2009: 15.01.09<\/a><\/center><\/div>\n<p>As a transit reader, I sit as far in the back as possible, where it&#8217;s possible to wedge into a side seat, face forward, and slouch properly into my book right under the brightest lights, right in a corner where no one can bump me. She, as a maybe slightly crazy person, got on a couple of stops after I did, and proceeded to begin a monologue of utter, <b>utter<\/b> bile. A narrative thread thick with <i>fucking pigs, wops the fucking lot of them or spics fucking spics and if he hadn&#8217;t fucking said those fucking lies, shit, it serves them right, fucking niggers, fuckers, mother fucking shits..<\/i>  It&#8217;s not like it was even directed outward, her obvious hatred at the entire planet and every multi-celled organism on it, no. Oh no. She stood there, leaning brutishly over her over stuffed back-pack like it was a rebellious child she wanted to smack, talking only to herself. Hissing, whispering, barely above a disturbing murmur. <\/p>\n<p>I tried to tune her out, and mostly succeeded, though there were a few moments when her volume reached out and clobbered my reading, usually with derogatory terms I had to search my memory for. (Like, okay, when she uses the word <i>chink<\/i>, she is obviously not referring to a plaster crack in a wall, but what the heck is a <i>chug<\/i>? Answer: I have no idea.) Every time the bus paused at a stop, my spirits lifted with a wild hope that when the doors opened, she would leave, and I would never see her again. More the fool me. Oh hope. Oh fallacy. Instead, she grew more violent with herself, more spirited. As my stop approached, I decided that I would brush past her as quickly as possible because I knew, I just <i>knew<\/i> that if she said anything even remotely hateful to my face, I&#8217;d slug her. It&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m violent, but more that I wouldn&#8217;t be able to help myself. I&#8217;m Canadian. I don&#8217;t even like to witness littering. <\/p>\n<p>The time came. I pulled the cord, the bell rang, the bus slowed. I stood, collecting myself as compactly as possible, and slid past her, touching her as little as possible. Unfortunately, given her disposition, she&#8217;d been crowding into my corner more and more, and by the time I got up, when I say I slid past her, it&#8217;s more I squished past her, trying to get by. She turned, &#8220;Hey!&#8221; and I braced myself, telling myself to be nice, to leave my pointy things in my pocket, to not bunch my fist full of keys. &#8220;Ma&#8217;am,&#8221; she said, (ma&#8217;am? really?), &#8220;I would appreciate if you would say excuse me in the future, as pushing past people is rude.&#8221; Stunned, I replied, &#8220;Er, sorry, I didn&#8217;t want to disturb you. Sorry.&#8221; and exited with as much confused dignity as I could.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Way to make a stand.&#8221; I thought at the corner, watching the bus drive by, &#8220;Next time I should set myself on fire.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>365 2009: 15.01.09 As a transit reader, I sit as far in the back as possible, where it&#8217;s possible to wedge into a side seat, face forward, and slouch properly into my book right under the brightest lights, right in a corner where no one can bump me. She, as a maybe slightly crazy person, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2009\/01\/16\/moments-when-i-suck\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;moments when I suck&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,14,814],"class_list":["post-2850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-transit","tag-vancouver","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}