Public Transportation and Public Intoxication

I originally wrote this story down, as a comment, in response to a friend's blog entry. I modify it slightly here and thought I would re-post it as a way of keeping it in my own archive. Besides, not all my friends know Cindy or read her blog (see the post that inspired this one at http://laserlady.blogspot.com/2008/01/thoughts-on-bus.html), so you otherwise never would have seen or heard the story. Anyway, ...

I had an experience with a drunk on a bus while on my mission. My companion and I got on the bus and I stood with arm raised to hold the hand rail. The man, seated behind me, waited a number of minutes before his desire to hold my hand strengthened sufficiently to muster the courage to act. There were a couple hurdles that would have to be overcome if the attempt was to be successful. Being too short to reach my hand and too drunk to see it, he reached instead for a known target – my armpit. Having caught me from behind by furtive approach and sneak attack, I had not the space on the packed bus nor scarcely any time to recoil before he was feeling his way up my arm and pulling it down so he could grip my hand. “Do you know what this is?” he asked while staring into my eyes, squeezing my hand between both his, and intertwining his filthy, odoriferous fingers between mine. “This is love; brotherly love.” At this point I responded with a sardonic “That’s nice,” and a (thankfully truthful) “Excuse me. This is our stop”. I pulled the stop request cord with my free hand while simultaneously attempting to extricate my appendage from the tangle of the man’s arms and digits. The man exited the bus with us and asked if he could join us wherever we were going. Gratefully, we prevailed upon him to let us go on without him, and we left the encounter only with the added knowledge of what “Brotherly love” really was.