As a shallow person I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know there are other people like me out there. Of course it warms my heart to realize there is a growing movement (two is greater than one) of shallow people in this world but more importantly, when that shallow person actually offers to write a guest blog post it means I’m off the hook for the week. And what could be wrong with that?
Having accepted this post I suppose I should add the requisite disclaimers, as one does when one posts the opinions of others. Just so you know, the ideas expressed below are those of the author and while I sympathize with the sentiments expressed I take no responsibility for them. At any rate, shallow as they may be, there is way too much feeling here for it to have come from me.
So without further ado I give you Louisa’s (yes the same one that won the folk fest prize but the fact that she was the only one to enter that contest in no way influenced my decision to invite her to be my first guest blogger) take on “love on the bus”.
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Hark, gentle readers. It happened again. On the commute home last night, two twentysomethings boarded the train and took the only available seats: one next to me, the other across the aisle. For a few minutes they chatted quietly, which is fine, and then they kissed noisily, which is not. Now maybe I’m turning into a grumpy old lady before my time, but most likely my aggravation stems from my big fat shallow secret:
I am opposed to public transit displays of affection.
Buses and trains are designed to fit as many people as possible into as small a space as possible. We’re sardines. We’re in each other’s spaces and each other’s faces. The person sitting behind you on the bus is only a few inches away from that tongue you’re sticking in someone else’s mouth. And if the person sitting behind you is me then I will go batpoop crazy on your a…actually I’ll just sit there quietly fuming and feeling disgusted because I have manners.
One time there was a thirtysomething couple in front of me. After enduring a couple minutes of their sloppy session, I stood up in a huff and moved seats. I glanced back at the couple, and they had the decency to look embarrassed and stop making out. So there: passive aggressiveness works.
Most of the time, though, it’s youngsters. Madly infatuated youngsters. Kissing and slurping and groping and groaning and licking and panting youngsters. Maybe they think the world is going to end and the only way to save it is to lick someone’s tonsils in public. We grownups don’t understand these things but youngsters do and they’re saving us all, one giant snog at a time.
But hey, I’m crabby and shallow and ok with the fact that the world might end for lack of saliva shared in public. So hormonal bus riders of the world, take note: I don’t give a damn about your happiness. I don’t care about your crushes or puppy love or nascent sexuality or even your lifelong devotion to a beloved partner who saved your life at an army hospital in the Franco-Prussian War. Take. That. Mess. Home. Do it in your living room. Do it in your bedroom. Do in your parents’ bed for all I care, but don’t do it in front of me.
Oh, and while I’m at it, get your dog off my lawn.
Shallow Be My Name 