Thursday's commute was the second worst of my career. (Quick aside: The worst was March 8, 2005. During a three-and-a-half hour ride home, I sent Scaramouch an email from my cell phone to gauge his progress. It was titled 'Commuting suicide.') This post was getting as long as the ride itself, so I'll break it up.
According to the official (posted) rules, there is no eating or drinking on the bus. But everybody does it. I myself have been known to smuggle aboard a bag of M&Ms or box of Swedish Fish. I once ate a Subway Meatball Marinara without incident. So when the bearded man seated beside me produced a bag of Cheetos, I didn't consider turning him in. In fact, I smiled.
I smiled because his blaze orange salty snack jogged a specific memory. My friend Alison, then a student at Parsons in New York, once asked Janeane Garofalo if she'd rather eat Doritos and not brush her teeth or Cheetos and not wash her hands. Janeane opted for Cheetos, and later told this story on The Tonight Show.
I have no good celebrity stories of my own.
This recollection was again deposited in my memory bank, and my bearded seatmate kept chomping away. His eating had a pattern to it. A distinct order. After each Cheeto, he licked his fingers, coating them with saliva. We all could agree this wasn't ideal. So he'd wipe his hands on the back of the seat before him, then in his dirty nest of a beard. This turned me off both Frito Lay products and excessive facial hair.
When he finished, a distinct orange film covered the seat. (Apparently the sucking wasn't completely effective.) I'm sure it was also dying his beard, but I absolutely refused to look. Oh, and we'd been on the bus for 45 minutes and had yet to leave the station.
* * *
We knew what we were getting into when we climbed aboard. A bad Lincoln Tunnel accident prevented any forward progress, a traffic report the Port Authority PA repetitively made loud and clear. I was the 49th passenger; the bus had 49 seats. About an hour into our stationary adventure, when the bus first lurched backwards, passenger fifty was caught off-balance. He fell and was laughed at. People were tired and fussy and laughing at inappropriate times. It had been a long commute and we hadn't even moved. We were on edge and just getting started.
