I had, quite possibly, the worst bus ride of my life tonight. I got on the S2 by the Giant in Silver Spring around 10:00pm. Just after having yummy spaghetti and meatballs with my amazing chef-boyfriend. He walked me to the bus stop and after about a 5 minute wait, the bus came and I got on. As per usual, everyone was sitting one person to each two-person bench. So, I was forced to sit with someone and I could choose, virtually, anyone I wanted. I chose a skinny Ethiopian guy, and quickly sat down. No sooner did I open my book, the guy across the aisle from me started coughing. I'm not talking a "friendly" cough, or one that could be a tickle, or anything ordinary, but a full-blown, hacking/vomiting cough. I mean, I could hear his lungs rattling with mucus. Not only is he not covering his mouth, but rather, his arms are fully inside his striped polo shirt. The guy sitting in front of the coughing man, probably petrified by the media's recent swine flu craze, soon moved to the back of the bus. Now, the entire bench in front of him was empty. As the bus turned on Georgia and proceeded to Alaska Ave., his disgusting cough continued. At that very turn, we left Silver Spring and entered DC. A large Black man came forward from the back of the bus and yelled at this little Black coughing man. "Now we in DC! THIS is my fucking city- MY town! You best cover yo mouth! Cover yo mouth when you cough! We ain't in Montgom-ry county no more, no! not in Montgom-ry county!" The coughing man said, "ok, geez, ok."
It wasn't long before the coughing man couldn't resist, and had to cough again. At this point, I felt as if I needed to cough as well and was doing all I could to ignore the increasing tickle in my throat. The big guy who yelled, rang the bell for the next stop and as he was walking by, handed the coughing man a small bottle of hand sanitizer and said "use this, you better put this on man-- just PUT it on." then he got off.
As we got onto 16th street, the bus stopped and fresh blood got on. Folks who didn't realize that this guy was a wack-o, but thought "hey! It's my lucky day! Everyone is crammed into the other seats while there's this whole empty bench here!" and sat down in the dreaded seat in front of coughing man. Oh no, I thought, while I tried to focus more on my book and squelch the feeling of coughing or getting off at the next stop. Soon enough, he started hacking again. At first, the person in front of the coughing man would fidget a bit. The second cough would merit a full head turn from the person in front. The following coughs received more and more fidgeting, until finally, the person just couldn't stand it any more and went either to the very front of the bus, or the very back. It was ironic, but when a person would sit in the seat next to coughing dude, they actually lasted longer, it was if, even after all this awful coughing, they didn't want to offend him by switching seats! One innocent man, who didn't know what he was getting into, got on the bus and plopped down next to coughing man. After a few coughs, he started glaring at me, as if to say "How could you? How could you have let me sit down next to this?"
As we started getting into single-syllable street names, I looked over at coughing man and saw that he was rubbing the hand sanitizer all over his face, hands, and even lifting up the legs of his pants to put it on his ankles. I couldn't look anymore, I had to switch to survival mode: must focus on book, must get through this bus ride, must make it home.
Another round of new bus-riders got on and a young, well-dressed Black guy sits down next to you-know-who. He soon learns to put his back towards the coughing guy and quickly notices the bottle of hand sanitizer on the floor of the bus. He picks it up and puts it on my bag "Excuse me mam- is this yours?" in a polite way. I almost screamed at the sight of that bottle so close to me but oddly all I could do is shake my head back and forth several times. I was in shock.
Soon, there was no more energy left to focus, I had lost my wits, and had to escape. The bus stopped and two other people and I rushed off; I was walking as fast as I could, then running, to get away from the recently disembarked bus riders and the bus. All of a sudden I stopped, bent over at the waist, and now that I was alone on the sidewalk, coughed.
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