Step Down

I accidentally got to work too early this morning. I'm still not sure how exactly. I woke up at 6:30, lied idle in bed for what felt like an eternity, showered and got dressed, walked leisurely to the bus-stop and took the elevator up to the office. I only finally noticed something was wrong when all of the lights in the building were off. Work was a complete ghost town. A tumbleweed, made of tangled USB cables, rolled by and slowly disappeared down the hall. The kitchen was closed and I was starving. Briefly, I considered eating the crumbs from a day old, half eaten bag of jalapeño potato chips laying in the garbage. Panic began to set in and I felt whatever the opposite of claustrophobia is. The entire office stretched out before me like a rubber band about to snap. How had I done this to myself, I wondered. Had I really not checked the time since waking up? There was the possibility of an elaborate prank, a ruse perpetrated by my officemates to trick me into believing no one was there. Any moment I expected them to crawl out like roaches from the shadows and yell surprise! That's the thing I hate most about roaches - how they always yell surprise just to scare the shit out of you.

Because I got to work early, I left early - at 5:00. The bus ride home was remarkably empty, which was unusual. Typically the bus ride home is packed well over capacity; why this isn't considered a fire hazard is beyond me. There isn't even enough room to prevent accidental aggravated sexual assault. Each brush against someone is a form of molestation, and each passenger, by the time they exit the bus, has been registered as a sex offender. Today though, on an empty bus, I had perhaps my most unwanted sexual advance ever on public transit. I was standing in the back of the bus, headphones on, minding my own business, like a good commuter, when I heard a kind of wet lipped whispering. I lowered the volume a bit on my headphones to see what was going on. Again I heard it. Because I'd turned the volume way down I was able to localize the source. I saw a rather large looking homeless man in stained sweatpants sitting to my immediate right, perhaps four feet away. At first, straining to hear the content of his communication, I didn't look over in his direction. Mmmm, yea, I'd put ma dick rii in dat. Wow, I thought, what a lewd thing to be saying aloud while ogling a female passenger. I turned to look at him, to reprimand him with my disdain, but when I did what I saw shocked me.

He looked like a crackhead muppet who had smoked so much rock that it had permanently deformed the bone structure of his face. He had Kermit The Frog eyes, set high and far apart. The right one, which was crooked and staring out from his head sideways, contrasted a lumpy nose which seemed to be dripping down his face like a melting Ferrero Rocher chocolate ball. Initially I couldn't tell whether he was looking at me, on account of his eye, but once his salamander lips bent into a slippery smile I knew he was staring straight at me. Yea, I'd tear that up, he said as his tongue hugged his bottom lip. I didn't know what to do so I looked at the people next to him for confirmation of what I'd just heard. They looked away quickly, embarrassed, attempting to distance themselves from the situation by avoiding eye contact. I did the same. What'sa matter, I too old fo you, he said before mumbling something guttural and incoherent. If it was twenty years ago, boy, woooo! That would be mine, right now! There were only two options for me at this point: continue to ignore him, at the cost of my dignity and self respect, or confront him. Confronting him was a curious possibility because the outcome was so uncertain. Clearly he had some sort of mental illness, hell, he might have even been on drugs, but his lecherous gum flapping was growing tiresome. The choice was clear.

"Yo, Kermit," I said, "you got something to say?" It was here that I realize I made a mistake. I had insulted a homeless, mentally handicapped man's physical deformity, brazenly so. I didn't stop here though. "Your nose looks like a burnt, half melted chocolate twinky and you're here mumbling to me, talking dirty and smiling? The fuck is wrong with you man?" An equally homeless looking Asian woman, whom I hadn't noticed before, stood up and leered at me before shouting: that's MY man! You don't talk to him like that! Why you listening to our conversation? Pretending you have headphones listening to music but you spying on our conversation white boy! Uh oh. I'd completely misunderstood the situation. Immediately I tried to rectify things. "I'm so sorry, I thought he was talking to me," I started to say. Talking to you? Why he talk that to you? You think he's gay, faggot? You say he likes men? You trying to say I'm like a man?! Her ire had caught the attention of the entire bus while my chameleon cheeks turned the color of a ripe Red Delicious. Seeing an amenable ending wasn't going to be possible, I began moving toward the door, shuffling awkwardly through the people that stood in my way. When I reached the door it wouldn't open and I started pushing it more forcefully. Before I knew it I was pounding on the door, shoving it, screaming: BACK DOOR! The bus was completely stopped; I couldn't understand what was wrong. Step DOWN asshole faggot bitch, Asian Miss Piggy yelled at me from beside her frog-eyed husband.

Of course. I hadn't stepped down.