How to win friends at the bus station.

Answer: All you need to have in your possession to win friends while at the bus station is a nice rack
.
Today started like any other day. I got up and fiddled around until it was time to go catch the bus and headed to the bus station. I've carefully timed my arrival at the bus station so that at the most I wait 6 minutes if the bus is on time. Today the bus was late.

We've had some amazing fucking weather lately and normally I would be the last one to complain but for one fact. They let the loonies off the farm when it's warm. Today I met 'Ron.' (Yes, 'Ron' is Ron's real name. Normally I use pseudonyms when depicting people here but I'm not going to do that today. Only because you need to be prepared if you happen upon Ron at the bus station.) Last summer when I started riding the bus I wore my mirrored aviators and listened to my iPod as loud as it would go as kind of like a sensory-deprivation/crazy-person-deflection thing. If I just ignored everyone no one was the wiser because they couldn't make eye contact or talk to me.

I rolled over my iPod dock with my desk chair and broke it so not listening to them isn't an option unless I dig out my old school Discman which is God knows where. I also wear my glasses in my winter-time which that prevents me from wearing my aviators. I need to schedule an appointment with the eye doctor ASAP and get some contacts.

This morning, I'm standing, sans lunatic-shielding, at the bus station beside Ron. Both he and I have an adequate amount of space in our personal space bubble which is where he caught me off guard; judging from this behavior I was unprepared for the onslaught of Ron to come. He asked if the bus was late and I said yes. This next step is where I went really, really wrong. He wondered if it was because of the bad storms we had last night and I said 'Gosh, they were pretty bad, weren't they?'

I should have never responded. Next thing I know Ron introduces me to his friend 'Damont' who just got out of jail and 'Howard' who after having some difficulty finding a job as a convicted felon has finally found some success. Congrats to Howard. And I pray for the bus to come. Ron inches closer to me and begins to invade my personal space bubble.

Ron apparently can talk to a brick wall. He talked and talked and talked, right up until the bus came and I finally had some hope of escaping Ron and his story about the tardy Time-Warner cable guy. No, Ron gets on the bus. This joker rides the same bus I do. Go fucking figure. Guess who sits down right beside me on said bus? That's right. Ron. Who remarked upon seeing me on the bus 'Oh, you saved me a seat.'

Normally Ron gets off at the first stop. I know this because he told me he gets off at the first stop. Today he didn't get off at the first stop because he was having such a good time talking to a sweet (Translation: young), attractive (Translation: Damn, you've got a nice rack) woman (Translation: Gurl, if we weren't in public. Mmm. The things I'd do to you.) This means I get to sit crammed into a bus seat beside Ron for 20 more minutes within which he regales me with details of his cousin's incarceration due to repeated 'grand theft auto' and 'possession with intent to sell' charges. He also mentions that he's seen me on the bus many times before and has been too shy to talk to me but today just seemed different. On and on he goes.

Here's the coup de grace of this whole story.

Ron asks me for my phone number.

Normally I come up with a fake name for when people at the bus station ask me my name but when Ron first asked me this morning I just thought he was talkative and less-lecherous than he turned out to be. So he already knows my name. Actually he thinks my name is Hannah; I'm generally too lazy to correct people when they assume this and when anyone at the bus station thinks I've said something different for my name than what it actually is, I roll with that. Normally I give random men who ask me for my phone number the number to the Papa John's near my mom's house. I figure they can eat their disappointment once they discover I've purposefully mis-led them. It's these little compassionate gestures that make me a real catch in the relationship department. For serious! But upon careful consideration I gave Ron my real number. For this reason: If he actually called and got Papa John's I have no doubt that Ron is the kind of person that would ask me about it the next day when he saw me on the bus, since he clearly sees me every day and what an awkward conversation that would be. At least this way I can still ride the bus and make nice while actively ignoring Ron and after repeated calls that go un-answered and not returned maybe he'll get the hint.

Then again he doesn't seem like the type to take a subtle hint. Does he?