So, getting home today was fun. I took the number 5 bus from the central MTA station and, near Hume Fogg, the bus was involved in an accident with an Izuzu Rodeo. I don’t know who was responsible, since I was reading a book by Carl Sagan, but I do know from experience that the bus driver isn’t the best. At several points over the last couple of weeks, he’s almost been in wrecks, and I knew it was just a matter of time.

What I do know, however, is that the people who were on the bus alongside me had some serious issues centered around dealing with the compulsion to shout out stupid shit. To whit, I provide the following quotes. Context appears where necessary, but, by and large, the quotes are unedited.

• “I got you son, I got eyes like a bald eagle, watchin what happen. In slow motion, man.”
• Another one of the West End corridor buses passes by: “Yo, shit that’s the bus I need! What the hell bus am I on? 5? What’s that shit, I need to be on the 3! Yo, driver, why you make me get on the 5, yo?”
• The woman in front of me, who had developed her own musk to the point of ripeness, and had a purse bulging with Whitney Houston memorabilia, was on the phone: “Yeah, dumb bitch was on the phone. Stupid to be on the phone when you drivin. Everyone knows that. Idiots always on the phone.”
• The same woman: “You can’t drive anywhere. Everywhere’s an accident. Maybe one or three of em. What you watchin? Tyler Perry? That’s good, funny shit. Good for you. You need to laugh.”
• A man with a prodigious, blonde mullet: “Man lookit her. Drivin an Izuzu Rodeo. Idiot.”
• After six times telling his version of what happened in the wreck, a man’s version was countered by a woman’s. “Bitch, I got good-ass eyesight I know what I’m talkin about, you wrong. It was HER fault.” Good-ass.
• “Supervisor. Yo. Listen. Lady had her phone–hey, yo–dog, listen–no I saw what happened.” “She only had her phone on after the wreck! Didn’t you see that?” “Oh, she had her phone on after? Shit.”
• “Homebody! Supervisor, yo, I know what–no I didn’t see it.”
• “Bitch probably got some nigga insurance.”
• “YO! BITCH! WHEN WE GETTIN ANOTHER BUS? I GOTTA GET TO MY DESTINATION!”

And that, my friends, is why we need to fund education in the U.S. So idiocy, which knows no racial, religious, or ethnic bounds, may be expunged from the nation.