prelude to a headache

with the rising price of gas (i can't believe i saw $1.27/litre on thursday night!), i decided to take transit to kerrisdale for dinner on friday night. it required taking 2 skytrain lines and 1 bus. from home to broadway station was uneventful. when i hopped onto the expo line, there was a couple on the train who seriously needed to get a room. it was bad enough to see them going at it, but do we all need to HEAR it?!?! yuck! thank goodness i was only on for 3 stations.

then i lined up for the 41 UBC bus. there were quite a few ppl waiting, but i managed to get a seat :-) unfortunately, after i sat down, a young man who was talking on his cell phone sat in front of me. he was on the bus until just past victoria drive, and he talked the entire time.......seriously, i don't think the other person got a word in edgewise. he kept talking and talking and talking. i think he was speaking tagalog......except every once in a while he would say "EXAAAAACTLYYYYY!" for goodness sakes! it was really grating on my nerves, and i couldn't focus on my magazine. i kept reading the same paragraph over and over. after a while i just gave up and stared into the back of this guy's head.

so this older asian woman (i think chinese) was sitting beside me, and she was quiet the entire ride. due to my inability to read, i would occassionally look around, and i caught her picking her nose on more than one occassion.......she was really digging around! eewwwww, gross!!!!! mental note......don't touch anything on transit!

then to top it all off, there was a man standing behind my row (right by the rear door) who had a distinctly gross odour about him (i'm pretty sure he wasn't homeless either). it was enough to make me gag. i tried to discreetly cover my nose, but i just couldn't. the only fortunate thing was he only stood there for about 3 minutes. i felt absolutely sick at this point.

when i finally got to my stop, i booted over to london drugs (i had some shopping to do) and used their washroom to sanitize my hands. of course, the bathroom there was less than ideal, and it had a strange odour to it as well. i just can't catch a break!

anyhow, i did my shopping, complete with advil and a bottle of water for my now-throbbing headache and headed to dinner. it was at dinner that i noticed that the In Touch magazine i had just purchased only cost me $0.25! it almost made my transit adventure worthwhile. almost. not quite. i still had to spend $7 on advil and water that i really shouldn't have needed in the first place.

to summarize.....

• if you talk on your phone on transit, use your quiet voice. i don't care what language you're speaking, it's just not nice to hear every detail.
• don't pick your nose in public. we all have nose issues, but seriously, that's why a really smart person invented tissues and bathrooms.
• take a shower once in a while! AND USE DEODORANT, DAMNIT!

ugh, just re-living last night is enough to make me want to vomit.