Have you ever accidentally followed someone? Maybe this only happens to me. I’ll set out in a particular direction and there will already be a stranger fifty or a hundred feet in front of me. They’re going to the same place, or maybe they’re just headed in the same direction to a slightly different destination. Either way I start to get very self-conscious that I’m making them uncomfortable because I’m following them. If I can I’ll stop and pretend to be interested in a flower or sign or fire hydrant to give them some time get farther away, but then I think that just looks even weirder. I don’t want to get close, though, or, worse, pass them, because that’ll make them even more uncomfortable, I assume, but if I’m on a schedule I’ll probably pick up the pace because no matter where I’m going I like to be fashionably early. This is especially true when I’m headed home because I’d rather get to the bus stop early than have to run to catch it or, worse, miss the bus entirely.
So anyway I’d missed the bus entirely. I checked the app and it looked like the driver had been about five minutes early which annoyed me. It’s one thing for the bus to be late, and it usually is which makes me think they should really just adjust the schedule upward by about five minutes, although then every bus would be ten minutes late, but that’s another story. I started walking to catch the alternate bus that stops several blocks away but, since it’s an express bus, drops me off at about the same time so it’s a nice option if I feel like walking an extra half a mile, which is why I never take it unless I have to.
As I was walking I passed a guy waiting at another stop on the regular route and I thought, well, I guess I’m not the only one who missed the bus. I kept going. When I glanced back I noticed he was following me. It made me a little uncomfortable at first so I picked up the pace, but then I thought, hey, maybe he got the same idea I had. And when we got to the bus stop he said to me, “I saw you walkin’ and recognized you from the bus. So I knew we’d have to catch this one or wait around another half an hour.”
I felt oddly happy that I’d helped a stranger in this way, but then he lit up a cigarette. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I was downwind of him and there was a breeze, and I started thinking about ways to get fifty or a hundred feet away without missing the bus.
You know the saying, “No good deed goes without carcinogenic air being blown in your face.” That is a saying right?
It’s a saying now. At least I’ll be saying it because this is not the first time I’ve had to share a bus stop with a smoker.
Chris, have you ever thought of trying to get on The Moth Radio Hour? You’re such a great story teller. If you take the lead there maybe I’ll try to follow.
I love The Moth Radio Hour but have never thought of trying to get on it. There have been some Moth events in Nashville, though, and I think they’ve also held workshops, so maybe I should take the lead of your suggestion and get involved.