Worked, got taken for a ride, and in the bed by 9PM…

At a stop on Gorman Street that is also a Wolfline (NCSU’s bus system) stop, the “transportational divide” (à la “the digital divide“) was more evident than ever. All of the white people and Asian people at the bus stop stayed to wait for the Wolfline bus, while all of the Hispanic and Black people got on the city bus. It occurred to me that up until about a week ago, I had always been on the Cauc/Asian side of the divide.

Once at the Moore Square Bus Station, I had a 45-minute wait for the next outbound Method bus. I fired up my laptop to do “local” work, and I did, updating my Palm Pilot calendar with the intra-China flights, which were outlined in a recent communique from P2P. Just for the heck of it, I tried to connect to the Internet, and lo and behold, Tir Na Nog‘s wireless network was accessible from there. I had a quick instant message conversation with Robert.

The Avent Ferry bus came before the Method one, and since I was getting very tired, I got on it to ride back instead of waiting 10 more minutes for the Method bus. After me, a white guy got on, who had evidently just had some run-in with a black guy outside, and a black lady across from him asked him if he was alright. As he answered her, the guy with whom he had evidently had the spat, stuck his head in the door and jabbing his finger in the air at him said, “Yeah, you go on and tell her what happened!”

“Just don’t respond to him,” the lady said shaking her head.

Shortly after that, the Method bus pulled up, and since it looked like the Avent Ferry bus was waiting to leave at some time that I didn’t know, and I knew the Method bus was leaving in less than five minutes, I switched over to that bus.

Inane conversations ensued on this bus. I really enjoyed the banter between a plus-sized black lady with a huge white bandage across her left eye who sat up front and talked to the bus driver all the way to her stop. At one point, they were talking about eating animals, such as rabbits, and squirrels, and rats (oh my!). When they said rats, this lady across from me, and we were a ways back said out loud, “Rats have diseases in them.”

The way she said it just cracked me up. It reminded me of a lot of Juanita‘s remarks in Sordid Lives. “Goddamn boll weevils.” ~Juanita in Sordid Lives~

Back up in the Cameron Village area, a cell phone behind me rang loudly, and the man who answered just screamed his entire conversation. “I’M ON THE BUS. NO. I’LL BE HOME IN A FEW MINUTES. WHAT? DO YOU NEED ME TO PICK UP SOME BEER ON THE WAY HOME? HUH? OKAY, I’LL STOP AND GET A 12-PACK. I’M GONNA NEED THIS MONEY BACK, THOUGH. IT’S MY LUNCH MONEY FOR TOMORROW.”

That conversation ended, and about three minutes later his phone rang again, and it was about 7:10 now. “HELLO? NO, I CAN’T. I’M STILL AT WORK. [chuckles from all of the passengers, including myself] YEAH, WE’RE FINISHING UP. I’LL CALL YOU BACK AROUND 10:30.”

Someone behind him said, “You’re lucky that lady [the announcer from the GPS system] didn’t come on and say, ‘Now approaching Oberlin Road’ in the middle of that call.” [laughter all around again]