A Story from a Bus Ride

The Mean Mean Lady

By Abbie, with some help from Lesley

We waited for the bus in Hanover, forced to listen to an obnoxious girl talk to her best friend on the phone for fifteen minutes.

“Oh, my Gawd! Hahahahahahahaha!!!! Can we SAY passive aggressive?”

As we wait, trying to tune out the din of her annoying words, we notice that the line of passengers waiting for the bus is getting longer than usual. We are a bit concerned, but we’ve both survived Thanksgiving travel on the Dartmouth Coach, so we think we’ll be okay.
We get on the bus, and it’s so crowded, we are forced to sit together, but that’s okay, ‘cause we don’t mind talking. Five minutes later, we arrive in Lebanon, where we de-bus to purchase our round-trip tickets. We notice that there are also a lot of people waiting in Lebanon, but it’ll be okay, we figure. How naïve we were.
“There are quite a few people waiting to get on the bus, so please leave a personal belonging on your seat to mark that someone is sitting there. Please do not block off the seat next to you.”
Being good little citizens, we leave our backpacks on our respective seats before the de-bussing begins. (Can you tell I like to say de-bussing?)
We wait in line, purchase our tickets, and then get back on the bus.
“Hmm. That’s funny,” we think, “there aren’t any empty seats. We definitely left a backpack on each one.”
THEN we notice the Mean Mean Lady scowling at us.
“Um, excuse me, but I think we were sitting here.”
She has shoved our backpacks and water bottles and other detritus all onto one seat. Does she seriously think that only one person could have that much stuff?
“WELL,” she says, scowling some more, “they shouldn’t sell tickets when they clearly don’t have enough seats. This really sucks for those of us who get on in Lebanon.”
Finally, she gets up, to go complain to the bus drive
Refusing to get off the bus, she stands in the front, forcing everyone to squish past her to get to their seat. After every passenger is comfortably situated, the bus driver comes to the realization that he will have to move the cooler of pretzels and water from the front seat so that she and a quite large man could sit down.
“I’m going to have to put the pretzels and movie headsets under the bus, so if anyone wants them, please come and grab one now.”
As we are pulling out, the bus driver makes his announcements.
“Hello, I’m David Harrison, and I’ll be your bus driver today. Today we’ll be showing SOMETHING LIKE HOME, starring Kathy Bates. You can listen in on your headsets. I hope you all have them, because now they are under the bus.”
Lesley turns to me.
“I think the Mean Mean Lady should have had to hold the pretzels and headsets on her lap.”
I think so, too, Lesley, I think so, too.