Last week I was taking the 22 from over by my dentist’s office to work. We were going up Fillmore and the bus stopped. I was reading a book so didn’t notice we’d stopped mid-block, just after Grove Street. I heard someone ask for the driver’s license and registration. I thought it must be some friend of the driver getting on and joking with him, or a cop boarding for a ride along trying to be funny.
Then I noticed we weren’t at a bus stop, and the cop who stepped up into the bus was wearing a motorcycle helmet, so he obviously already had his own transportation. He asked again, “Can I see your license and registration please?” Holy crap! My bus was getting pulled over!
That was when most of the passengers started to laugh.
Apparently the driver ran a stop sign. He swore he stopped and one dude in the back backed him up, but a bunch of us were laughing with glee. The murderous MUNI drivers need to follow them some rules! The cop said that well no, he’d really just slowed down to about 7mph and then breezed through the intersection. He wrote him up a ticket, and we continued up Fillmore with our now red-faced driver.
I dreamt I married the wrong brother. I’d lived an entire lifetime in the dream world, fallen in love with the adventurous handsome brother of a pair of brothers. The younger, lesser brother was our constant companion throughout an adventurous youth. I was happy with the handsome brother, we were in love – I knew he loved me.
As we got older we spent less time on our adventures. The younger brother was still a constant companion, a friend in times of need, always available, kind, complimentary, and always on his own. My husband the handsome brother would go off on solo adventures more and more often, but I was not concerned. I always had the company of the younger brother to entertain me.
One day when the handsome brother was away, I found a scrapbook journal the younger brother had been keeping throughout our lives. Clippings from trips and events. Memories from our many worldwide adventures. I read his journal entries and learned that the handsome brother, my husband, had carried on countless affairs. A good hearted man, a loving husband, but incapable of being the man he tried and wanted to be. I had lived my life content with his half-presence and realized only now after reading the scrapbook journal that it was the younger brother who had been my partner in life after the youthful love affair with the handsome brother. I realized he was not the lesser brother, he was as handsome and smart, as adventurous, and silently, unwaveringly devoted.
I sat in the chair next to his and saw the sadness in his face that I should have read his journal and found out about the hidden disappointment of my life. I knew he had planned to give up his chances of fulfillment if he could maintain mine for me. I took his hand and I thought, “I have married the wrong brother.” I saw two divergent paths leading away from that moment. One with him, one without him. The dreamtime moment froze. “I have married the wrong brother.” I thought, “And I don’t know what to do.”
I’ve had to stop warning people I see on the street with their iPods hanging out and their white headphones dangling from their ears. I’ll still do it if I’m in the elevator at work with someone who has one and is about to walk out in the direction where I got robbed, but otherwise, even in close proximity to the mugging, I just can’t be the crazy lady who rushes over to tell you to be careful. When I do have the occasion to warn someone, they get freaked out and run away from me. Perhaps it’s because I point at my neck and say “Oh yes, I even got my throat cut for it!” Yah. They don’t seem to enjoy that.
I probably also shouldn’t be surprised when I see my friends sauntering around town with their iPods in view and their white headphones dangling. But I am surprised. Every time.
Not that it matters, I had black headphones and it was stuck in my pocket.
Oh well.