I am a starcrossed lover of the obnoxious. On one hand, they are the bane of my existence. On the other, one of my top earthly joys is needling them, from the pompous prick to your standard everyday fuck face. That’s why my failure to launch today, into one very ripe and deserved needling session, really shocked me. Dare I say, it shocked me into contemplation?
I was pinned on the train, right near the door. Me, in the middle of a man-triad made of some guy’s pot belly and bad breath, one man’s ogle and another man’s ass. None too pleasant. So I slid my way by the potbelly and a bunch of protruding bags into the isle. Because no one ever moves into the (fucking) isle, I make it a point to defy the sheep and shove my way out of the el’s doorway every rush hour. I don’t understand why people stand there like dumb animals crowding the door, pinning each other in, when there is clearly space in the isle. It is my greatest commuting pet peave. I’d just withered and twisted and excused my way to a more spacious point, when I hardly brushed a woman. She looked harmless enough. Turns out she was your standard every day fuck face.
“You want to stand there or do you need to move back,” she barked.
“Just standing here, ma’m,” I mustered. I looked back toward the door. Did she not see where I just was? Could she not offer a little space?
I put my pack on the floor. It must have touched her.
“I can’t move any further back,” she snapped. Then she shoved into me with two shopping bags. A passive aggressive old marm shove.
Oooooh did I bite my lip. Oooooh did a million retorts rush into my brain.
I yearned to muster a mildy abrasive, “Take it easy, lady, it’s rush hour. Personal space rules don’t apply here.” But what really burned my throat to escape was the line “Fuck off and go home to your 93 feral cats, K?” {insert sarcastic smile for bonus insult}.
But, I didn’t engage. I didn’t even sigh, or roll my eyes secretly. My reaction was a total lack of reaction. Why? I looked at my emotionless reflection in the window, thinking about that. Thinking, “What the hell happened to you?” The first thing that came to mind were the Chinese.
I spent last year in the world’s most populous country. China. Where the buses and trains and streets are more crowded than spoiled Americans could imagine in our most claustrophobic commuting nightmares. People shove. People bump. Cars honk at pedestrians at decibel levels never heard on this here American soil, and for seemingly no reason. And no one says a word. No one bats an eye brow. The sea of shoving, bumping people have the collective countenance of a placid mountain lake. I was, for months, baffled by the phenomenon, but finally came to admire their unflappable ability to ignore. It was something I eventually found myself wanting, lusting after, because I didn’t have an ounce of what they had. Those cool, unbothered looks were everywhere. It’s like they’d reached a heightened state of consciousness. Engaging in blow ups and tantrums and doesn’t change the fact that the guy who just cut you off is a fuck face.
When I didn’t bat an eye brow at the barks and marm shove, when the retorts stopped knocking around in my head like a million protons, what emerged instead was the placid collective countenance. Thank you, China.
