CTA Allergens, posted by Kellie

I’m sitting on the bus, minding my own business, when. . .

The bus stops and admits a few new rain-sodden passengers at Delaware. One of the newcomers sits down perpendicularly from me. He’s next to me, but not quite, and in front of me, but not quite that either. We’re at the corner where the horizontal and vertical seat rows form an L.

I want to prop my head against the window, but I remember a friend telling me that the bus is full of more germs than a toilet bowl and remain upright. I sneeze, twice. I am, perhaps, becoming part of the reason that the bus is full of more germs than a toilet bowl.

The newcomer turns to me and asks, “Are you sick?”
“No,” I respond. “Allergies.”
“You’re allergic to the rain?” he asks.
“No. I’m not allergic to rain.” I say, annoyed, but at the same time trying not to laugh. Of course I’m not allergic to the rain. Is anyone allergic to the rain?

I hate getting to know people, much less striking up conversations with complete strangers on the CTA. It’s so hard to learn the ins and outs of a particular person’s idiosyncratic mind. And, unfortunately, most of the time you’re too invested in the person by the time you discover you’re really not that interested. I continue, “It’s just that time of year.” I hope he will leave me to my iPod and sit quietly like the rest of the bus riders.

But he doesn’t afford me this luxury, and doesn’t seem to notice that my one-word to blunt responses signal that I don’t want to talk.
“Man,” he says, seemingly to no one, but he’s looking directly at me, “I’ve been looking for a job all day.”
“Oh,” I say, nonchalantly, shoving my iPod headphone deeper into my ear, as though he hasn’t already noticed I’m “busy.”
“What do you do?”

I hesitate, as I almost always do, when I’m about to tell someone that I work in retail. Not that there’s really anything wrong with retail, but there are certain assumptions people bring to that job description: not intelligent, no college education, etc. But I have both. So at least I have the personal assurance that I could be doing something else if I felt like it, but I don’t.

“I work in a clothing store,” I say. This guy has no place to judge me, anyway. He’s been looking for a job all day, in the miserable rain that can only signal fall is coming – quickly. At least I spend my 8-5 doing something and getting paid.
“Cool,” he says. “Are they hiring there now?”
“I think so,” I say, hoping he’s not going to show up at my counter tomorrow and ask for an application.
“I’ve been looking for serving jobs.” I want to shake him at this point and scream that I don’t care. I don’t respond. I have nothing to say about serving jobs, I’ve never had one.
He persists, “So, you’re in school, then?”

I groan, inaudibly. I just want to listen to my bad music and get home, into warm clothes and dry socks. The assumption people make about retail kids is that they’re still in school, if they’re courteous enough to give them that much credit. At this point, I want to make him feel like an idiot. “I just finished my master’s in June.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yup.” I am trying to be as short as possible without being completely rude. Customers are completely rude to me for absolutely no reason, I vow never to sink that low. I start reading one of the overhead bus advertisements about becoming an egg donor. The few. The proud. The egg donors. It was enough to make me feel like I’d be signing up for the army if I called their toll-free number or visited their website, despite the fact that I could win a couple’s infinite gratitude. Too much responsibility, I think.

“So, what did you study?” I sigh. I thought we were done with this.
“Writing.”
“What kind of writing?”
“Creative.”
“Cool.”
I begin to hate the word cool, in reference to anything that isn’t weather.
“Do you want to teach?”
“No.”
“Oh.”

I’d like to think he was just being friendly, that he had a long day and needed someone to talk to, but I wasn’t going to be that person. Not tonight, or ever. The bus can’t seem to drive quite fast enough to get me home. It crawls past Armitage and Webster and slinks to a stop at Belden, even though the light is green, no one has requested a stop, and no new passengers are waiting. I usually get off at Roslyn. But I can’t wait today. I stand up and request a stop at Fullerton, even though it’s raining, and even though my feet hurt. I can’t answer one more unsolicited question about the job he doesn’t have and the life I’m nonchalantly planning for myself. It makes me think too hard about what I really ought to be doing.