Bag Lady

I like to think of life as an adventure. My writer’s mind is always watching and taking notes. Some things I observe can easily be translated into prose. Other things are so odd, I have no idea how they would ever be used, but I file them away anyway, just in case.

I’ve been using public transportation lately. That isn’t as exciting or interesting as I thought it would be. I have noticed a few things. Some things shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Like there is a definite difference between male gas and female gas or maybe some men are just more manly than others and I notice it more. I’m not really sure how I would use this information in a book, though.

Harley waited under the streetlight as she’d been instructed. The woman named Samantha, Sam for short, was finally going to meet with her. She knew it could get both of them killed if the agency found out about it. The boys didn’t like people messing up their sandbox and she and Sam planned to give them a full-blown dust storm.

Then she smelled it, sulfurous and yet sour, like clabbered milk. There was a man in the shadows. It was a trap!

Like I said, not much potential with this.

I’ve been debating on buying one of those little cart things, but they’re $30 and I’m hoping not to be a bag lady very long. I don’t really know what else I would use one for.

While we’re on the subject of bag lady carts, let me explain my views on them. I think what kind of cart you use is a status symbol.

The little, light-weight wire ones seem to be the cart of choice. Light, easy to fold up and relatively easy to get up and down the bus steps.

The ghetto cart is someone using a rolling suitcase.

Hardcore bag ladies have the shopping carts. I admit it, I want a shopping cart. I just think they are awesome. They’re big enough to put anything, about, you want in them. They have four wheels instead of two for greater stability. Many of them have built-in cup holders. They have the wire racks underneath for greater storage.

Oh, yeah. More power. I want the shopping cart. The biggest drawback is getting on and off a bus with them. The bus drivers here are pretty laid back, but I think they would object to shopping carts.

Plus, where do you get shopping carts legally? Is there a store for shopping carts?

I went to the post office for the first time last week. It was interesting. That was my first foray away from the route to work, where I have mastered trading busses. The post office was a much larger step. I not only had to change busses, but I had to time it so I caught it on the back run. I went to the post office a few days before that, but I walked from there back downtown to the bus stop. This time, the lady bus driver told me she’d be back around in about 30 minutes and showed me where the bus stop was for the return ride.

I stood there on the corner, trying to look nonchalant, when a lady walked up and asked me if that was the bus stop. I said it was and it should be there in about fifteen minutes.

She laughed–loudly–hysterically.

I looked around to see what she was laughing at. She dropped her head down a bit and peered up at me sideways, then started laughing again. I looked around to see what was so funny. Then I looked down at myself. Maybe my jeans were unzipped or something.

Nope, jeans are zipped. Nothing odd about the way I look. Jeans, grungy tennis shoes, green tee shirt, gray hoodie jacket, nothing to write home about, but nothing to laugh at either. She, on the other hand, was fashionably attired in a bright red coat with large black buttons, she had a jacket with a hood on under that, jeans with the white stripes down the front and back that look like you rubbed up against a wall that had just been whitewashed, red tennis shoes, red and white striped tote bag and, most notably, the brightest Pepto Bismol pink lipstick I had ever seen.

She started talking to herself, then she looked at me and laughed again.

She had to have a Blue Tooth stuck in her ear.

I convinced myself she really wasn’t nuts and went back to looking nonchalant.

That’s when she began waving to the passing cars. Not the beauty queen ™ wave. I’m talking the throw your hand in the air, televangelist “be healed” wave.

I took a few steps away and pretended I didn’t know she was there. It was kind of hard because she’s talking again, so people had to think we were visiting.

Things calmed down and she quit waving at the cars and trucks like she was trying to heal them. Thankfully. It reminded me of an old joke and I had all I could to keep from laughing every time she did it. Since I was trying hard to look cool, laughing for no reason wasn’t good.

I looked at her and she was looking at my APO flat rate priority mail boxes. They gave me ten, so I have to take care of them until I can figure out the ordering them on line thing. I clenched them tighter under my arm in case she made a dive for them.

I swear, old woman, you touch my special APO flat rate priority mail boxes and I will beat you to a pulp with them.

She must have noticed I had a firm grip on them and they were going nowhere because she stopped looking at them.

I looked at my watch again. Wow, has it just been ten minutes?

She was laughing again.

Not to worry, she’s talking on the phone to someone.

She pushed her hood back. Nope, no phone stuck in her ear. She’s just discussing dinner with her imaginary friend.

Her little tote was kind of cute. I looked at it to see how it was made.

She noticed me looking at her tote and tightened her grip on it.

What the heck? I’m not going to steal your tote!

I clutched my APO flat rate priority mail boxes closer to me.

Just before the bus came, she waved and walked away.

I got on the bus, pondering what just happened. What if this was a test? What if she was an angel in disguise and I was supposed to give her something? What if she was the angel of Christmas and needed APO flat rate priority mail boxes?

If it was a test, I failed.

I held my APO flat rate priority mail boxes tightly.

My precious.