Time of day
As I was getting on the train to go home last night, there was a group of four quite giggly girls getting off it. They bustled off the train, laughing at one another.I stowed my bike in the little wheelchair stall and belted it in so it wouldn't roll out and crack someone in the shin, and turned around.
"There's no way those girls were in college," a scruffy dude said. "They said they were in college. They acted like highschool kids. They were just uncivilized. Carrying on that way..." he trailed off into a mutter.
Now, this is a critical juncture. Can this scruffy person handle the responsibility of being on conversational terms with me, or are they going to misuse the privelege by asking me for money? I could just shrug, indicating I don't want to talk to him, or I could talk, indicating to him that he can ask me for money.
I decided what the hell.
"Some people just don't know how to behave," I said. I thought that this statement might clue him in that I also have a certain set of rules by which I expect people to behave.
"Yeah. What time is it?" he asked. This is almost an infraction of my "Don't Fucking Ask Me For Stuff" rule, but I could see how someone might not have a watch.
I looked at my phone, told him the time, and sat down. He didnt say anything else. Perfect.
I snoozed for a while as the train rolled along. When I woke up, the driver was ordering everyone off the train. This is a shitty trick the transit people pull. They take trains to the center of town, order everyone off, and then park the train so the drivers can get off work. This means that instead of going straight home on a moderately full train, I ride a few stops that way, then get dumped off, wait 20 minutes, then get on a fucking slammed full train, extending my ride as well as my irritation.
Anyway, I got off the train and sat on a bench. Scruffy man sat next to me. I was listening to my earphones, so I pretended not to hear him babbling, but I eventually decided to pull the one in my right ear out and see what he wanted.
"Hey man, can you make a phone call for me and see if someone is home?" he asked.
What the fuck?
"I don't have any money." I said.
He gave me a wounded look. His eyebrows fluttered up and down.
"For the phone..." I continued, making a putting-change-in-the-payphone motion.
"You have a phone, though" he said.
Oh yeah, he saw my phone when I looked at it to tell him what time it was.
"Yeah, but it's long distance for me cause I'm not from here." I lied.
"Oh, oh, okay, nevermind then" he got up and went to ask some other people. I put my earphone back in my ear.
A few minutes later I saw him leaning over at a girl and going "Hello? HELLO?" at her. I guess she was ignoring him. Wonder why?
For someone so concerned with civility, he sure didn't mind bothering people.
In my experience, people will ask you for larger and larger favors until you stop giving them stuff. First it's the time, then "Can I use your phone?", then "Can I have five dollars?", then "Can I fuck your sister?", so you're exposing yourself to the least amount of irritation by telling them to go fuck themselves straight off the bat.
I broke my own rule by telling him what time it was, so it's my own fault.
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