Thessaly's Tooth

I like taking buses. You can meet interesting people, eavesdrop on some interesting conversations, and see interesting parts of the city. True, some of these are more “interesting” than interesting. For example, you can find yourself involved in the oddest conversations without warning and with no effort on your part. Like the time I was standing waiting for the bus, and some guy walked up to me and abruptly started telling me all about his teeth, and the various dental work he’d had done recently. Then there was the fellow who appeared at the bus stop and started giving me job-search advice, stopping occasionally to inform me that he looked like Walter Matthau (he sort of did) and that he should “marry a woman.” Well okay.
In Lincoln, there was this local cult-type thing which aggressively proselytized to people, buttonholing them on the street and peppering them with questions about their spiritual life. One of three times this happened to me was while I was waiting for the bus–annoying, I couldn’t escape until the bus came. Simply assuring these people that I was a Christian and had a church wasn’t enough, they were determined to find out all about my religious practices. The other two times I can remember encountering them was (1) while innocently walking down the street and (2) at a new job I had when someone from that church acted like they wished to befriend me–really just wanted me to join the church. This is exactly the sort of thing that made me not want to be a Christian before I was one, so good thing I already was by that time, I guess.
But, back to the bus. I’ve taken the bus to work twice in the last two weeks. I’ve already found myself involved in one peculiar conversation, and have stood witness to many others. I’ve been through parts of GR I’ve never seen before in my nearly two years here, including some that I want to explore more. And, the bus would give me plenty of time to sit and read, if I could ever remember to bring a book.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 11th, 2005 at 9:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.