Two days after the exam and I still feel like I'm in a bit of a haze - it must have taken more out of me than I originally thought...or maybe it's just the fact that I'm really tired of being intelligent and can't wait for this term to be over - I can't stand the thought of finishing the current paper I'm working on or the one that I've requested an extension on.

So, instead of writing a paper, I'm going to blog, 'cause it's far more interesting. Speaking of interesting characters, I could tell you about this guy I saw on the bus.

I took a different bus than the one I usually take home, and even though it takes longer to get me back, I didn't feel like walking the extra half mile to get to the regular bus. About two stops along the route, this big guy gets on, youngish, but definitely past high school. He struck me as one of those guys who just kinda drifts for a while after high school until finding some kind of niche, but I found myself wondering if this guy would ever find a niche. When he first got on the bus, he was in the middle of a phone conversation, and as he sat down (on the seats reserved at the front for disabled/elderly I might note), he dumped his oversize bag onto the foot of the woman next to him. She obviously didn't appreciate it, since she winced when it landed on her, but he apparently didn't even notice. I did however, 'cause I was trying to read and his half of the conversation was loud enough to make that difficult.

As the bus emptied, he eventually took over three seats (him & the monster bag), but what kept my attention on him was the rather loud conversation.

I wondered how often this guy alienated people, got beat up, lost jobs, friends, money etc. 'cause he described half his life to the person listening on the other end of the phone. He told of how he thought that he was the only one this other guy (who knows) would never lie to, even though he lies to everyone else... as if he had such a high degree of integrity that no one would ever dream of lying to him. Now, that's not a really off-the-wall claim at face value, but as the conversation went on, I started to doubt his claim. He later described how he stayed up late at a friend's house watching loud movies just outside of the door of a roomate who was trying to sleep and how insulted he felt when the roomate was miffed the next morning! And then how he alienated another friend on a road trip by changing radio stations without asking other people in the car. Apparently the driver didn't care for the music he did, but he thought it was unecessary to ask his opinion since he was sure the other passenger liked the kind of music he did.

I was able to tune much of the rest of the conversation out, but from that sample, I found myself wondering just how clueless this guy could be about his effect on the people around him.

I certainly thought poorly of him, and I only shared a bus ride with him!

I also found myself wondering what kind of dream world this guy seemed to live in. His conversation indicated that he didn't see anything wrong with the way he was making his way through life, and yet his presence in the world negatively affected at least two of us on the bus, if only for a moment. I guess the thing that annoyed me the most was that he reminded me of a certain someone who I spent way too much time living with and HIS relative obliviousness to the effect of his actions on others around him. Why do these people exist in the world? Who raises these people to become the boors that they are? Did their parents just not care? Or was it out of their control? In the case of the bus-guy, I have no idea. For the other, well, there were many things that his parents could have done differently and in that case, the apple didn't seem to fall far from the tree. I guess I worry sometimes because I don't want to raise children who grow up to be such adults. And I feel like I'm doing my damnedest not to produce such people, but wonder if sometimes there's just nothing you can do.

The last thing the world needs is more boorish people!