I See Dumb People

Tim's Favorite Blogs

The Weather
Ruffle Your Shuffle
Eschew Obfuscation
IM Earthling
Silk Road
The Huffington Post
Talking Points Memo
American Progress
Citizens For Ethics
Crooks And Liars
Common Cause

Media Matters

Blog Directories

Saturday, August 9. 2008

Guess I’ll start flushing the toilet and washing my hands after taking a dump in public bathrooms.

Don’t ask, but I’m gonna tell anyway. On a forum I frequent, there was a thread about “dumb people.” In this thread (topic) the members post messages about “dumb people” encountered in our lives.

Someone posted about people evacuating their bowels and bladders in public restrooms and then leaving without washing their hands. Of course, we’ve all had the experience of watching — or listening, if they’re in a stall — someone pee and/or poop and then exit the place without at least a quick spray from a leaky faucet.

Since I’m a contrarian at heart, the only logical reply, from my point of view, was, “Guess I’ll start flushing the toilet and washing my hands after taking a dump in public bathrooms.” I think it’s funny.

Earlier in the thread my message was that since I use public transportation I see and experience “dumb people” every day. And I’m not even including the stupid drivers who cut off the buses or — stupidly enough — the ones who drive around the barricades to beat the trolley as it rolls through an intersection. You know, we’ve seen that in movies, but now that I ride the trolley nearly everyday, I can witness to the world, people really do that.
 Here’s the dumbest part of the dumb person trying to beat the trolley train by driving around the barricade: the trolley is only two cars long, takes less than a minute to roll through the intersection and the barricades are down for … three minutes? Is life so busy? It’s a rhetorical question.

Back to the topic, “I See Dumb People.” So, one of the members implored me to elaborate on the dumb people I encounter on a daily basis. It’s hard, really, When you spend as much time traversing the city on public transit, the stupidity becomes really rather normal.

I mean, every day at least one person will try to scam a bus driver with an expired day pass or flash an I.D. that has absolutely nothing to do with the Metropolitan Transit System in hopes of getting a free ride. It’s stupid because I’ve never seen it work. On the other hand, I would probably never know if it works because the perps wouldn’t brag about it to his or her fellow travelers. Unless they were extremely dumb.

What’s annoying about the people trying to hustle a free ride is that the bus driver will keep the bus sitting at the bus stop as the hustler tries to talk his or her way onto the bus with some song and dance as to why they should get the free ride. Some of the stories are so … nondescript … they are as common as the old school excuse, “My dog ate it.”
 I always felt sad for the student whose dog actually did eat the homework. The excuse has been so abused by we liars, the honest ones get lumped in with the liars.

Some of the stories are so creative, my thought is always, “they should get the free ride because that was pretty good.” Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a bus driver, Hot looking hustler’s would always get the free ride and those with the exceptionally creative stories would ride for free too.
 Speaking of hot little hustlers …
 As I was riding the #15 bus eastward on El Cajon Blvd., I saw this hot, hot woman standing on a corner wearing a very short sun dress. It really didn’t hide a thing, especially with the wind blowing in the right … err … trajectory. She wasn’t wearing any under garments and, I might add, her lovely mons Veneris was as bare as the day she was born. Oh, mama mia! I popped a woody right there! Wished the #15, which makes limited stops on El Cajon, stopped on that corner.
 She does not qualify as a dumb person. She qualifies for the free ride!

But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. The worst of the public transit are the religious nuts who implore you to “find Christ” by handing out little pamphlets and flyers. There are some who only ride the buses and trolleys to carry their “ministry” to the somewhat captive audiences on the buses.

I despise these people. Every day I encounter at least two of these cretins, waiting at the stops or on the buses themselves. The worst and most prolific of the bunch are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They’re worse than locusts, they’re like ants and I hate ants. The pamphleteers always smile and hold out a pamphlet, often with the words, “Jesus loves you!”
 Well, he probably hates you for being such an annoying bitch!
 Oh yeah, they’re usually women, although Friday morning the cretin was a man.

But they are so common they hardly rate a mention in a topic/thread titled “I See Dumb People.” The crazy ones, the crazy ones … yeesh … They probably shouldn’t be in a thread about dumb people either, although they are generally exceptionally dumb. There should be a thread about scary people. These are the ones who decide to preach “The Word,” according to them, based on their life experiences, real or imagined.

 Real or imagined because some of them … well, for instance:
 There is a guy I encounter on the #20 from time-to-time who talks about how the U.S. State Department stole his daughter from him so they could sell the girl as an adoption in Columbia.
 No, I’m not making this up. He, of course, riddles his story with various quotes from the Bible in his effort to make it more believable.
 The idea of trying to buttress a tale like that with quotes from a religious text first put to paper (sort of) in the Stone Age just boggles the senses!
 One time there was a woman he knew, not very well it turns out, and she was apparently unaware of his prodigious talent for being nutso. All she could do was smile and be embarrassed he was talking to her.

And then there are the ones who decide to engage me in conversation. Like on Wednesday when I was on my way to the J.O.B. riding the #20A bus from Fashion Valley to Kearny Mesa. Since part of my trip includes pedaling the Trusty Trek I wear shorts and either tanks or sleeveless t-shirts. So, this woman points to my tattoo.

I had to pause the Zappa, the really scorching version of “Sofa” from In New York and pull the iPod plug from my left ear to hear what she was saying — and this is why I almost became evil — and she asks, “is that Satanic?”
For a second or two I thought of the joy derived from saying “Yes,” but thought better of it since I would be on this bus with a potentially insane Christian for nearly 20 minutes, so I said, “No, it’s for Capricorn.”

I put the iPod plug back in place, restarted “Sofa” and then noticed she was asking another dumb shit question. So, pause went “Sofa,” out came both iPod plugs and she asks, “What does that number six stand for?”
 “666” is the number of Satan, don’t you know …

My thought was, “This effin’ woman is effin’ loony,” but replied, “It’s not a six, it’s the Sumerian symbol for Capricorn.”

“Sumerian,” she asked in that quizzical tone most religiously under-educated people have when you present them with information that wasn’t approved by the minister, bishop or holy man for thought inclusion.

Now I was P.O.’d ‘cause if I had gone with my first impulse and said, “Yes, it is Satanic,” the nutso might have kept her effin’ trap shut, allowing me to listen to Frank Zappa uninterrupted. Now, instead of listening to “Sofa” and the “Black Page #2, the Easy, Teenage New York Version, ” I was schooling a religious nut on an ancient civilization.

Ironically, when she first got on the bus my thought was, “I’d [do] her!” She was wearing a woman’s sleeveless shirt and tight, tight Spandex shorts which were very, very short. sigh And I was hoping it might be my lucky day.

Yeah, I can write about dumb people. There could be a dumb person blog everyday here. They are that common, not all of them religious freaks either!

After the encounter with the woman concerned about my tattoo, another, matronly woman, offered me a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet and rather than pause Zappa, I said loudly, “That is evil. Religion is the root of all evil.”

After that, no one tried talking to me for the rest of the bus trip, which was cool with me ’cause I wanted to finish listening to my Zappa.

The moral of this story: whenever anyone asks about my tattoo, my simple answer will always be, “Yes, it’s Satanic.”

•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••

Just to catch up on the previous blog: Salim Ahmed Hamdan received a sentence of only five and a half years. Apparently the jury doesn’t think he is so dangerous he needs to be put away forever. Well, I’m pleasantly surprised and delighted to admit I was wrong.

•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••

Sad to report, comedian Bernie Mac has died. He was one of the funnier comics and he made the Ocean’s 11 franchise a lot more entertaining than it might otherwise had he not been in the films. Read more Here.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Religion and Society at 01:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.