Weblog

I kind of take the bus everywhere I go these days. As much as I would like to claim that my taking the bus to get to and from everywhere is motivated by some noble desire to save the environment or cause less congestion on the highways or something along those lines, none of those really matter because I don't have a car. Regardless, I pollute less, I save money from not having to park, and I snicker at the poor bastards stuck in traffic while the bus cruises down the express lane every morning.

Anyway, this evening on the way back home from work, we passed a bus that had broken down. The driver had the good sense to stop and take on the passengers from the other bus. Needless to say, it got a little crowded. When I noticed that there were ladies that were standing, I did what any young gentleman should do: I offered my seat to one of these ladies.

Here seems to be the irony worth pointing out: most women who I offer the seat to refuse to take it. Most of the time, they simply decline politely. However, it's not uncommon at all for a woman to give me a stare of surprise with a look of near disgust as if to say: “Did you really just do that?” It's almost as if I were treating her as a member of the weaker sex and insulting her in the process.

That's totally understandable. What once would have been considered chivalrous is now fundamentally sexist. This is America: the nation that was founded as an experiment in egalitarianism.¹ Americans (at least Americans now) take equality so seriously that “separate-but-equal” wasn't equal enough. So, pretty much, the thought that treating a woman as anything that might seem different is cause for an alarm. Maybe some people are shocked that society has decayed so much that such a response from a woman is cause for an alarm. Regardless, the last goal of chivalry is to offend. Also, societal norms change, and it's the people who don't change who end up looking like idiots.

The only thing left to do to make a weblog entry like this complete would be to ask my multitude of female friends what they think about it. I'm way ahead of myself here:

• One person said that every time a man does something chivalrous like giving up a seat or holding the door open, she, if only for a brief moment, “falls completely and totally in love.”
• Another said that she would simply appreciate it since it was the way that she grew up in her Midwestern life.
• Yet another said that she feels that men should still give up seats on the bus, she prefers to stand thus begging the question “Why bother then?”

I feel the need to continue writing, but my eyelids don't want to allow me that pleasure. Besides, tomorrow morning, I'm waking up early to go eat breakfast with some of those female friends of mine.

1. And, if you ignore slavery, segregation and the now everpresent trend to see terrorism and Islam as one in the same, it's sure has done a damn fine job.

So, I'm signing up to take a class at Metropolitan State College of Denver. With it, the student ID card counts as a regional bus pass for the RTD here in Denver. When I compared the cost, it's actually going to be cheaper to take a class than to purchase monthly bus passes for the next five months.

The question: should I take advantage of a transit agency that's having cash problems by paying next to nothing to ride the bus to and from work every day by just taking one class?

The answer: hell yes!

Anyone who knows me knows that I can be one to harbour bitterness against people for years. I feel like sharing with you some bitterness in my heart that's directed toward my mother, and, if she's reading, she should realise how actions committed years ago can still hurt today.

I hate Halloween. Anyone who knows me also knows that I'm not one to play dress up. Something about dressing up just seems to be immature and not appropriate for the advanced society that we've come a long way in improving and maintaining. Although, I'm sure that that process of reasoning wasn't what was on my mind when I was in kindergarten. Back then, I still didn't like dressing up in costumes as a five-year old.

I had determined that I was not going to dress up in some sort of costume when I went to school that day. My mother with her motherly intuition was probably thinking that her son was going to be ridiculed by all of the other children, and he would end up in the corner crying, so, out of good intentions, she dressed me up like Batman. Never mind the fact that as a child, my cartoon tastes tended more towards Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse instead of the Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles or Batman crap that my brother grew up on.

Pretty much, I was in a really bad situation: against my volition, I was dressed up in a costume, and, if that weren't bad enough, in a costume of a character that I really didn't like or care about. Why? All because my mother didn't want me crying in the corner. So, what did I do once I got to school that day? I cried in the corner.¹

As good fortune would have it, a few years later, my parents got a hold of some fundamentalist-Christian literature or something and decided to drink the Kool-Aid on this one and boycott Halloween. When I found out that I didn't have to go to school on Halloween, it was the happiest day of my life! If nothing else, it was a free day off of school.

1. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”