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.

Learning to Pack Light

I thought I would point out some things that I've learned in all of my recent travels about how to pack light.



1. When you know that you are going to be working or spending all of your time indoors, without the opportunity to be outside for more time than is required to walk to your car, leave the sunblock.


2. When you do not already have a regular routine of exercise and will be on travel (where predictable schedules are nonexistent and new rituals and habits are nearly impossible to form), don't pretend like you are going to start exercising while on the trip. Leave the workout clothes at home. If you cannot be dissuaded and the dillusion persists, limit yourself to one set of workout clothes.



3. When you're up against the baggage weight limit, get rid of the microwave popcorn.

Learning to be right-brained

One of the stated objectives of this blog was to practice being more right-brained. I have therefore been on the lookout for ways I can expand my horizons. Instead, the other day I noticed a situation where a right-brained approach should be discouraged. I choose to call the activity "creative merging". In the case of merging, I think that following standard traffic rules should be encouraged, and the use of the shoulder as an extra lane simply because you don't want to merge yet should be discouraged.

Best Way to Be Hit by a Drunk Driver...

I have, quite by accident (I won't apologize for the pun), found the best circumstances for being hit by an inebriated automobilist. I thought I would share so that if you are ever able to plan ahead for such an event you will know how to set it all up. The following is one set of circumstances which, if met, will ensure that event will be a complete success:

1. Be on business travel so your company insurance will pay for everything.
2. Be in a rental car. This way you can simply exchange the damaged car for another rental, take 20 minutes to file a damage report, and then never have to see or deal with the problem again.
3. Be in a lot of traffic so the intoxicated driver cannot accumulate enough speed to cause any injuries.
4. Have the DUI driver be in a small sedan
5. Ensure that the tipsy small-statured male driver first hits the rear wheel of a young lady's large truck, thereby absorbing most of the impact energy through malleable deformations to his own automobile, causing little or no damage to the truck's tire, and causing his own automobile to literally bounce off the large tire in such a way as to begin to roll over.
6. Conclude the accident portion of the scenario with your own serviceable act of placing your rental car (unintentionally of course) in the path of the rolling car so as to prevent him from completely roll over. In this way you have been "hit" by the drunk driver, causing significant cosmetic mutilation to your rental car, but no serious structural damage or personal injury.
7. You can then add to your service by casually getting out of your car (in the middle of the busy, though stagnated by traffic, freeway) and assist the offending driver out of his car through his passenger window.

Among the obvious advantages of these "ideal" circumstances is the difficulty, even inability of the the imbibed party to perform a "hit and run". It's hard to drive away while your car is sitting on its door. If you can think of better circumstances, please let me know.

In the beginning...

And the blog was without words and empty; and nil was upon the page of the cite. And the fingers of Crutches moved upon the keyboard at the page of the cite.

And Crutches typed, Let there be words; and there were words.

And Crutches saw the words, that they were few; and Crutches edited the words and removed the drivel.

And Crutches called the words "Punctilious", and the drivel he called "Compunctions". And thus Punctilious Compunctions were the first entry.