Miss Information

It was Thursday night and it had been a tough one. Everyone who wasn't on vacation had called in sick and Miss Information was the guy in charge for the evening shift. It wasn't difficult. The few remaining staff members were great, the patrons were cooperative and the night ended with no fatalities.

As she entered the subway station she heard the familiar crackle of the PA. "Attention subway passengers travelling on the north-sozz r...(static) delay suzzbod at the (static) stuzzin. (static)(static) sznal pro.. During this time, please (static)(static) We apologize for any inconvenience." Sigh. These things are automated now. Shouldn't they make some kind of sense? 

Eventually Miss Information made it to her station without incident and got on a bus right away. One of her fellow travellers was an inebriated and loud young man. This was a little strange because the inebriated, loud people usually annoy Miss Information on the Friday night bus. 

This was a young man of colour, which will become relevant later. He was very loud and peppered his speech with liberal use of the word fuck. He would have fit in perfectly in the library staff room, actually. The young man was not offensive (unless one is offended by swearing). He was alone but spoke as if he were being interviewed. He was a big fan of Tommy Hilfiger, was very fond of his Polo wallet and was concerned that his shirt was dirty. By the way, he started wearing those shirts before anyone else did. He was from the West Side, you know. Miss Information imagines this is exactly what taking the bus with Kanye West is like except with less Kardashian. The young fellow shared his political beliefs: this is a great country for immigrants, we should be grateful for what we have, etc.

Did Miss Information mention that it was teeming with rain? She had no umbrella. She was about 2 km from her stop when a woman, Caucasian, which will become relevant shortly, approached the bus driver to complain about pseudo-Kanye. He might have a gun or a knife, you know. The bus driver (a woman) was sympathetic but wanted to get on with the driving. Miss Information wanted her to get on with the driving, also. Pseudo-Kanye had moved to the back of the bus and didn't know the woman was complaining about him but for some reason decided to make his presence known by shouting the word "fuck" and the bus driver pulled over and called for assistance. The complaining woman and several others opted to get off the bus and stand in the pouring rain because this made some kind of sense. Miss Information regretted not bringing an umbrella so she could walk home but she was staying put, thanks.

Miss Information has never been on a bus where assistance has been called and so she was completely astonished that the assistance came in the form of a disembodied voice on the PA. 

"(static)speaking szz blah loud man on the bus. Please (static)(static) or police will be (static)(static) snuzz sporgle..bus."

This wasn't that helpful. Pseudo-Kanye didn't realize that the message was directed at him, and even if he had, it wouldn't have helped anyway because the message made no damn sense. When the fellow realized he was part of an incident, he asked the bus driver what was going on. The bus driver told him he was making people uncomfortable and asked for a show of hands. Miss Information suspects that the uncomfortable people were the ones outside in the rain because no one put their hands up.  Shouting ensued, the bus driver threatened to call the police and eventually the man left the bus. 

The whole thing left Miss Information sad and she wishes she had done something in support of the man. He had done nothing that she could see besides be loud and black on the bus. There was certainly no reason to suspect he was armed. The complaining lady got back on the bus feeling very virtuous that she had prevented an incident, but all she'd really done was make Miss Information dislike white people a little bit.