The P(assive Agressive )acific North West

This might become a series...

Dear Newspaper Lady On the Bus,

Hi, yes, I'm the chick with the "messenger-esque" black bag with the state patches on it that you use to keep your newspaper in place EVERY SINGLE TIME I end up standing near you during our commute to "Seattle's Beautiful Downtown" (as this latest bus driver has begun calling it).

I know, I know, I'm a good shelf for your paper seeing as you're sitting facing me and I'm standing in the aisle and all. At least I'm not like that cute Chicana-looking girl who stands right up against your knees facing you and looking over your head out the window while humming whatever music she's listening to on her iPod. I mean, if you opened your paper then, well, you'd be resting it on her chest and I think even she couldn't ignore that one. I'm really trying to take up as little of your personal space as possible in comparison, see?

That being the case do not make HUFFY noises when I move and crinkle your paper! And on Friday? You know when you decided that the space between the straps was the absolute perfect fit to the top half of the paper as you were busy reading the bottom bit? So much so that you kept pushing it further and further toward me so I could keep hold of in my armpit? It was not my fault that the driver pounded on the breaks trying not to run into the idiot that cut him off and then slowed down below the speed limit, sending all of us standing passengers forward a good foot; so your making a big show that I had pulled some of your pages away with me and, oh my goodness, WRINKLED your precious paper? It didn't earn you any brownie points in my book.

The fellow who is pretending to read his paper on the other side of me, you know the one that won't give up his seat even to the little old lady with the cane? He FOLDS his paper to a nice compact size so that he can hold it right up to his face and pretend to be completely immersed in whatever article is there, completely ignoring the driver's suggestion to let the blind woman with the dog sit down. But at least he doesn't consider me a piece of furniture.

I wonder Ms. Newspaper Lady, if I were the one sitting and you the one standing, would you open your paper and rest it on my head? Somehow I get the awful feeling you would.

Sincerely,
Furniture Girl