I Hate You, Have A Horrible Day

I'm struck by how weird we all are. The guy next to me on the bus has a box of frosted flakes with him. I'm guessing he will be eating breakfast at his office. But frosted flakes? Who eats those?

A lot of weirdness is on display when you participate in something as communal as public transportation. There's a woman who regularly applies all of her makeup. Or the guy who spent the whole ride talking on his cell phone loudly enough that the entire bus knew he was headed to a court hearing that might end with him incarcerated.

Everyone tries to maintain their own space, preserve their anonymity so no one can see their weirdness. Earphones, newspapers, look out the window. Set a bag in the seat next to you so no one SITS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. God forbid. Then they'd know for sure how weird you are.

Don't get me started about the weirdness of the group of women with whom I spent a night in a holding cell. Two had smacked around their boyfriends. Which is weird. Don't get me wrong, I know domestic violence goes both ways, but one of these girls was pretty tiny. Two others were there because of unpaid parking tickets. How many of those do you have to get to go to jail???? Weird. The rest, like me, were drunk and driving, or drunk and causing trouble.

My kids are weird, too, but in a good way. This morning, A. announced,"It's opposite day. Mom, I hate you, have a horrible day." And I'm so weird that I worried momentarily about the karma that I would put out there if I repeated this back to him. But he smiled at me expectantly, so I said, "I hate you, too baby, have a horrible day."