Buttonholed at the bus stop: A Talk To Muckefuck Story™

[muckefuck]

There's a special kind of sinking feeling that comes over you when you realise you're the only one waiting at the bus stop for a bus that you think is scheduled to come in two minutes. At first, of course, you wonder if you read the schedule wrong. Or if they changed it without informing you. Then you panic about making getting to your destination on time and begin worriedly considering other options.

My anxiety was extinguished when I checked my phone again and realised the reason the shuttle wasn't there is that it wasn't due for another hour. How I managed to convince myself that 7 a.m. was 8 a.m., I'll never know, but now I was stuck with the choice of waiting nearly half an hour for another shuttle or playing CTA roulette. A few stray drops convinced me that this was not a day for games of chance. I took a seat and opened my book.

Some minutes later, a well-dressed older gentleman came by and offered me a copy of Awake magazine, which I politely declined. That didn't discourage him from chatting and he launched us on a getting-to-know-you conversation. You're a librarian? My ex-wife was a librarian. She used to do storytime. You do storytime? For the first few minutes, I was tense expecting that fateful personal question which would change the whole dynamic; when it failed to materialise, I allowed myself to relax.

People I recognised began appearing and I realised the shuttle was nigh. I don't know if he realised it, too, but he wound down his disquistion on what a lovely place E-town is and wished me good things. And then it came:

"You have a family?"
"I do."
"You have a wife and kids?"
"No, I don't. I have a partner of thirteen years. We own a house together."
His face darkened. "Well, everyone chooses their own lifestyle..."
"And some lifestyles choose you."

Then he preached to me briefly about desire, about how if you lust after something long enough you'll give into it. I bit the insides of my cheeks to avoid saying, "You mean like desire for a God?" After he said his piece, he hurried off like there was suddenly someplace important he had to be.

There's a special kind of thrill you get from seeing a hot topless bear approaching. That thrill is heightened when it's a hot bear you actually know. Between the panic and the Witness, a friend of aadroma's I'd met at Bear Pride stopped at the light long enough for a bit of chat through his open window. "Work is that way," I told him, pointing in the opposite direction. "I quit my job there." he replied. "Now a full-time gigolo?" I teased. It was a fun exchange. It would've been even more fun had it happened about, say, ten minutes later.

Comments

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Maybe he was divorced before he joined the Witnesses?