I was standing at a bus stop for King County Metro, reading.
A late-20s alabaster-white goth woman with red-orange lip stain sat on the bench, smoking. A light-skinned black woman who turned 71 over the weekend asked if she could sit, and joined goth girl on the bench.
A white-and-grey shaggy haired white guy somewhere between prematurely grey late-20s and Pacific-Northwest-age-deceiving 40s paced in front of us, well-dressed, two of his backpack compartments unzipped and open to the world. The older woman called out to him to ask if he knew his backpack was unzipped. He swung it around to fix it.
The older woman noticed [the size of] my feet - I wear a women's US 4.5 - and it started a conversation between the three of us women about shoes. The pacing guy announced, "Hey! Hey, watch this!"
We turned and he hiked his leg and pretended to pee on the bus stop sign post.
"I peed on the sign!" he declared in a high voice with bright eyes.
Goth girl and I exchanged looks. I never know what to say in moments like this, and neither did she. We'd both been riding Seattle public transit plenty long enough to abide by the unspoken rule of not engaging unless something critical was escalating.
The older woman looked at the sign post, looked on the ground to see if there was a puddle, and then calmly looked up at him and said, "I missed the show. Can you do it again?"
A late-20s alabaster-white goth woman with red-orange lip stain sat on the bench, smoking. A light-skinned black woman who turned 71 over the weekend asked if she could sit, and joined goth girl on the bench.
A white-and-grey shaggy haired white guy somewhere between prematurely grey late-20s and Pacific-Northwest-age-deceiving 40s paced in front of us, well-dressed, two of his backpack compartments unzipped and open to the world. The older woman called out to him to ask if he knew his backpack was unzipped. He swung it around to fix it.
The older woman noticed [the size of] my feet - I wear a women's US 4.5 - and it started a conversation between the three of us women about shoes. The pacing guy announced, "Hey! Hey, watch this!"
We turned and he hiked his leg and pretended to pee on the bus stop sign post.
"I peed on the sign!" he declared in a high voice with bright eyes.
Goth girl and I exchanged looks. I never know what to say in moments like this, and neither did she. We'd both been riding Seattle public transit plenty long enough to abide by the unspoken rule of not engaging unless something critical was escalating.
The older woman looked at the sign post, looked on the ground to see if there was a puddle, and then calmly looked up at him and said, "I missed the show. Can you do it again?"
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