Hand off the knee, please.

The other morning I was happily napping away when a man in a white suit sat next to me. I thought at first I'd been dreaming, since the man in the white suit smelled of incense and liquor and I decided that only someone from a novel or a dream would smell that way. But no, I wasn't dreaming. I know I've mentioned several times that I don't like to be touched by strangers. He had the unsavory and all-too-common habit of sitting with his legs splayed wide open, spilling into my allotted space. He also fell asleep, which means that when the bus would make a left turn, he would slowly lean over toward me until he side was touching mine. I decided not to get overworked by it. Then our bus driver announced that we should change buses, and so I took the opportunity to hope that he would select another seat. But no again. He sat next to me again. Determined not to be overly perturbed, I read my book calmly until, in a seemingly random and relaxed gesture, he let his hand move to my knee. I moved my book to the side and made a deal out of looking with a deep frown at his hand, which he quickly moved. We rode in silence for the remainder of the trip.

I wonder to myself when I will finally snap and make a scene with one of these individuals. I will probably simply immortalize him as some super unsavory character in a white suit and smelling of incense and liquor.

Too Close For Comfort

I wish I could post more positive stuff. For the most part, though, the sort of positive stuff I would end up posting would be along the lines of "had a pleasant enough ride today, nothing out of the ordinary, everyone was pleasant."

So I've learned something interesting about myself recently. I don't like to be touched by strangers. I can't sit for an hour or more with one entire side of my body pressed up against a complete stranger without obsessing about it the entire ride. Usually this sort of scenario occurrs with men,since they are on average larger and so take up more than their fair half of a seat bench. Yesterday was a typical example of this. A man sat next to me and immediately his arm and thigh were touching mine. I moved as far over as I could to eliminat the touching, and he took this as his opportunity to spread out. He then fell asleep. At this point, it was my body holding him up. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that his was blocking my escape from the situation. I find that feelings of claustrophobia occur, for me, when I am being touched by a stranger AND my escape is blocked. I feel trapped. Finally, no longer able to take it, I got up to move. Instead of standing up, he did this little turn thing which I hate because then I have to stick my butt in the person's face while trying to squeeze past. He must have sensed this by the look on my face, because he ending up standing at the last minute. Or maybe he didn't want to be that close to my butt? Anyway, I was free. He fell back to sleep.

In a related story, I was in a similar situation to the one above, with the exception that as the man fell asleep his head would fall onto my shoulder. I don't like to make waves in the world, but I feel it is within my right to request that he not do that. But, rather than make a big scene, I would nudge him to wake him back up. In retrospect I maym have simply said something, but I never know who I'm dealing with on the bus and so don't want to aggravate someone with a mental condition or tendencies to anger/violence. I see people get angry at someone who obviously has a mental condition, and I just feel like there's no point. For the most part, it's not like they can help it. It would be like getting made at a child for making a mess. Anyway, that's all.