Wonderful, white, straight teeth
Riding the bus into work at 7 am from the Eastern suburbs, I sat down in a seat and the man sitting next to me says “good morning!” I respond back, little did I know, that was opening the doors to a half an hour bus ride of awkward conversation. The man, who is about 50 years old, me being 20, goes on to say, “Your name must be Jenny, I am Bob” I say, close, and then tell him my name. (Apparently this is the new way to ask people their names)
Bob goes onto ask me if I am an iPod listener, new to the bus system, I told him yes, most of the time, I like to listen to music and sleep. I should have said yes, all of the time, because there was not a moment for the rest of the ride where he was not talking or me responding with a one syllable word or yes, no, ok, etc.
Bob begins to tell me how a family friend is in the hospital and how Bob’s wife and son went to visit this man who was in for heart surgery and how the patients mom got pizza for everyone, but there was not enough for Bob’s family, so they went to the son’s place of choice, White Castle.
The small talk continues into the heart of Minneapolis when Bob prefaces his statement with, “Don’t think this is creepy or anything” – this made me immediately think, YIKES! He goes on to tell me that my smile/teeth make him want to go to the dentist. I take a moment to respond and then simply say, thank you. Bob says, “You know, it is not weird for me to say things like this because in August, I will have been married 29 years!” I respond with a simple, “Congratulations”.
He continues to compliment me for about 5 minutes on how nice my teeth are and how my parents must have great genes in order for me to have such wonderful, white, straight teeth. When my bus stop finally arrives, not a moment too soon and I am able to depart from Bob.
Moral to the story, I will always now remember to #1, walk onto the bus with my iPod on, maybe not playing, but at least look like it is playing. #2, always respond with, I am not a chatter. And #3, never again sit by Bob.
Jun 25th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Welocme to life on the commuter buses.
Jun 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Wow, that’s indeed bizarre.
I guess the other approach you could take is to try to be WAY weirder than the weirdo. So he says “Your smile is nice and I want to go to a dentist” and you say “Dentists killed my father, so I kill dentists. With barbed wire. In my sleep. In St. Paul. Are YOU a dentist!?!?”
Aug 7th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
But if you wore your iPod, you wouldn’t get to have this interesting experience…