No thumbs at all
About 10 years ago, I was riding the 4 southbound from downtown on a summer day at rush hour, the bus was about 3/4 full. At Franklin and Lyndale, a tall, slim African-American man in his late 40s or early 50s got on. He sat down in the sideways-facing seat directly behind the driver. There was already another man sitting there, in the third seat, furthest from the driver. He was also tall and slim, but white and maybe a few years older than the other guy.
Each man had a small, brown-paper bag with him. The white guy’s bag was just a regular lunch-bag size, and he had placed it in the middle of the center seat. The African-American guy’s bag was the next size larger, but still not very big, and he also desired to place it in the middle of the center seat.
An argument ensued, with each fellow claiming that he alone should be allowed to have his bag be the sole occupant of the seat. In just the two blocks between Franklin and 24th, their argument had grown so heated that they were shouting, and almost at the point of blows. The white guy got up to leave, discretion being the better part of pissiness in this instance, and as he was exiting, the African-American man yelled after him: “You ain’t got no thumbs at all! You’re a thumbless motherfucker!” The thing was, the white guy had all two of his thumbs, whole and complete.
Sep 13th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
That’s a strange insult…
Sep 14th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
All kinds do ride the bus, make our job more interesting!