Shadowboxer
Weirdest flight delay ever: no water on the plane. A 5 and a half hour flight with no water, Which would have meant no coffee, no toilet flushing, no washing hands, etc. This tops extra planes on the runway in ATL, hungover pilots on Southwest in Tampa, and a communication failure with the tower in Miami. Even the mumbling, diabetic dude with muscle spasms, who was chanting “I’ll kill you” on a Greyhound bus back in 2004.
Bought some movie tickets online and got hit with a $2.00 convenience charge. What’s convenient about charging me more for movie tickets that I decided to buy online to reduce the congestion of the theater’s ticket lines? Movie theater, you’re lucky I even choose you. There’s about 4 million of you in this city. In fact, theaters should pay us a convenience fee for going to their theaters in the first place. I want my convenience fees in unmarked bills.
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There’s a war going on, people, and you might not be aware of it. A daily war. It’s brutal. It’s nasty. It’s ugly. The crazy people on the bus are trying to take over your sanity, bring you over to their side of the aisle, and make you one of them. There are many like me who are on the frontlines. Every day. Fighting for ourselves, the people we love and care for, and even those of you we don’t know. Recently, I’ve kept a record of the covert transmissions and communications between fellow soldiers and myself. Although, the vast majority of these correspondences are highly classified, I have been granted special permission to share with the public–to give you all a sense of what we’re up against. The “Metro Tales” texts are from me, while the other ones were sent to me from other field operatives. The following identities have been protected for the sake of their ongoing missions and the privacy of their families:
“Metro Tales” text #183: “Lady sitting in front of me smells like a wintertime Easter egg, has on a bucket fishing hat that may actually have fish in it, and a magnifying glass that she’s using to inspect what looks like the purity of her bottled water.”
“Metro Tales” text #2722W: “There is a man on this Hollywood bus who is rubbing baby powder all over his face.”
Incoming text #031: “A man just got on the bus with thorns tattooed across his forehead and tears tattooed under his eyes. I guess he thinks he is Jesus…Today is a crazy day. Another guy just asked if snacks were served on the bus.”
Incoming text #29m7: “Hey, I think one of ur people is sitting right in front of me in her pajamas, a neon headband and a puffy jacket…she just said that she carries a lot of stuff because people have been tried to stab her and she was murdered one time. Really lady? You were murdered?”
“Metro Tales” text #33996: “Standing in front of woman on the bus who is touching the pole with a napkin. Every time someone comes by her, she makes a face of disgust and disdain. Hmmm. If you’re that turned off by other people, then maybe you should get the hell off the PUBLIC bus.”
“Metro Tales” text #4UQ: “Just saw a man at the stoplight licking his hand like a cat.”
“Metro Tales” text #919: “This woman has on a deep purple shirt, periwinkle pants, violet shoes, a green turquoise head wrap, and is carrying a magenta bag. She won’t let anyone sit down. Keeps using her seat as a back scratcher. She scares me.”
“Metro Tales” text #7877: “At a bus stop, some random dude told me that he was gonna tell me a joke, and if I laughed, I should give him $4. First of all, I can pay $10 or $20 at some comedy club and see SEVERAL comedians deliver SEVERAL jokes. Sir, your one joke is grossly overpriced. Your joke better be the funniest thing ever created, or…forget it. Never mind. I’m done. Hungry.”
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I wish that someone would think outside the box and come up with a saying other than “think outside the box.”
I love going to my friend’s church. The girls hardly wear anything there.
Women like things delivered to the office, like flowers on Valentine’s Day, especially if there are other women around to witness. Guys aren’t the same. The only thing we want delivered to the office is our W-2s.
You should not be taking the elevator up one floor unless you’re someone who’s allergic to stairs, a baby, a custodian with a cart of supplies, an elevator repairman, a disabled person, Jack Bauer and you don’t want to waste part of your 24 hours in a stairwell, Santa Claus taking a badly needed shortcut for once, or a Slinky that’s tired of stairs, period.
Dog owners who just stand there and let their dogs bark and growl at each other are usually the same people who try to convince me that their dogs don’t bite and aren’t aggressive.
A friend of mine said that some guy ran across 3 lanes of traffic to get her number. She didn’t give it to him. Now, ladies, if a man dashes across multiple lanes of busy traffic to get your number, risking his life and the lives of other motorists, it is required by law that you relinquish a number to that man. That man is owed something. It doesn’t even have to be your phone number. It could be any number. Give him 911, 409, 1492, or something. Anything.
When I’m at the bathroom urinal, what makes you think that I want to hold a conversation with you? The close proximity of our genitalia doesn’t automatically warrant any small talk, chit chat, etc. I ain’t thinking about the weather, the game last night, the new girl in Finance, or anything. In fact, when I’m pissing, I’m just listening to the sound of my own high-pressurized pee slam up against handcrafted porcelain. The sound of serenity. Why do you have to mess that up?
He or she who heats up fish in the office shall be thrown into the sea with the rest of them.
As I walked through the bus aisle one night, I noticed there was a large man in the middle seat in the back. He was staring straight ahead. This wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary had he not been grinning from ear to ear. Odd, I thought. Based on my past experiences, I knew that something wasn’t quite right with this guy, especially since we were on the bus. Uh oh. He then shook himself out of his frozen state and began looking at the other passengers. The #1 rule when dealing with the crazy bus riders is to avoid eye contact. So I pretended as if he was a solar eclipse and kept my head down. However, I did notice one thing. The man had his pants down around his ankles, and he was just sitting in his tidy whities. Disgusted and ashamed to be a member of the human race, I climbed into my coat pocket and hid until the rescue team found me.
A calm night. A calm breeze. The only sound was the low rumble of the engines of a few passing cars. Like any other heavy traffic of random thoughts and ideas that roll around in my head. In a momentary lapse of concentration, I peered at a shadowy figure across the street. The shadowy figure looked back at me. Oh no. I had inadvertently made eye contact with a local crazy man. Stepping out of the darkness, he must have seen my unfortunate fleeting glance as an alpha-male challenge to his dominance and ownership of S. La Brea Avenue. So, that’s when I changed my pace from a stroll to a trot. Although it is widely known that I am one of the world’s slowest walkers and that comparing my speed to the swift acceleration of the no-longer shadowy figure isn’t really saying much, I must say that he crossed the street in the blink of an eye. Having picked up my speed again, I mentally and physically prepared myself for combat. But since beating up a vagrant isn’t really cool, I told myself that if he touched me for any reason, I would turn around, plant my fist in his nose, and walk away. By this time, he was only a few feet behind me. Suddenly, I heard a series of “hunhs” and “hees.” Completely lost and bewildered, I noticed something in the corner of my eye and looked down to the side. The man behind me was going off, unleashing a flurry of punches at my elongated shadow from the towering streetlamps. “Hee, hunh, hee, hunh, hee, hunh,” he bellowed out with each punch. I eventually made a right, taking my shadow with me. He looked disappointed and kept walking south on La Brea. My shadow sustained a minor concussion and several bruises to its back. Every so often, I’ll see that man. He still looks at me with his floating eye. He even says hello sometimes. But I don’t pay it any attention. He won’t catch me with my guard down. I know he’s waiting. Waiting patiently for the sun to drop below the horizon. For the streetlamps to illuminate the paths of the tar serpents, which twist and turn throughout the city. For the shadows to take their perpendicular positions to the persons they follow until the sun awakens, furious because it missed the fight of the night. Oh yeah, shifty eye. It’s me and you. Our shadows fight tonight. Ding! Ding! Round 2. Bring it on, nocturnal pugilist.
Think Ink|Thinq Inq 