A good-looking and well-groomed twenty year old boy just got on the bus wearing a shirt bearing the slogan: "You laugh at me because I’m different. I laugh at you because you’re all the same." As I glance around the bus I notice two things about its occupants: One, they are a remarkably heterogenous collection, representing a wide cross-section of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. I can hear at least three different languages being spoken, from the two teenage girls in the seat behind me conversing in Spanish to the tiny eighty year old women at the front of the bus speaking loudly to herself in Chinese. The architects in the seat in front of me are discussing the weight-bearing properties of hyperbolic paraboloids, which is technically English but should probably qualify as a foreign language.
The second thing I notice is that nobody is, in fact, laughing at this boy. Nobody is paying him any mind at all. I am wondering what desperate trauma he has undergone to leave him feeling that people are all laughing at him for some reason. There is a middle-aged black man sitting on the aisle beside me, and as I notice him noticing this kid I imagine him asking himself a similar question: "Why do you feel so persecuted, handsome young white boy?"
Maybe the other kids in his High School made fun of him? Who knows. I momentarily consider the possibility that he just doesn’t know what his t-shirt says, which sends me off on one of my cruellest flights of fancy since the "donate your old clothes to the blind" flyers showed up on our doorstep. (Am I the only one who finds this suggestion a little insulting? I mean, what exactly are they implying? )
Tangent #1:
"Well, the first thing we do is find a local literacy program. We approach the program coordinators and explain our idea of helping out by printing free T-shirts for program participants, as well as clarifying our agenda and methodology. Then we print up the shirts, each one bearing the official logo accompanied by a short slogan. Now we tell the recipients of these shirts that the slogans say things like "Change a life. Give the gift of literacy" or "Franklin County Literacy Outreach Lifelong Literacy Program."
But the t shirts are actually emblazoned with cheerful, engaging slogans like "Ask me about Proust!" or "Call me Ishmael" or "Hyperbolic Paraboloids: Weight-bearing and loving it!" Etc – the sort of things sure to provoke questions and conversation from strangers. Ice-breakers, if you will.
Nothing too insulting, mind you. No "I’m with Stupid^." The goal is just to generate plenty of entertaining confusion as the budding readers go about their business and are forced to field incomprehensible questions from literate strangers regarding the messages written across their chests. A day or two of this would prove highly motivational and loads of fun besides! Once the students have realized the little joke we’ve played, everybody can have a good laugh about it. Talk about a win/win!
Sadly, we won’t ever be able to enjoy this final phase, for even as the truth begins to dawn on our beneficiaries, we will have already moved on to the next town, bringing the joy of literary humor to yet another lucky group of men and women. But we can rest easy knowing we have left such a trail of good feelings in our t-shirt-wearing wake."
By the time I come back from this tangent I see that I’m at my stop. I start to get off the bus and the bus driver yells at me, demanding payment.
"Didn’t I pay when I got on?", I ask, befuddled because I’m certain that I did.
"I don’t know, did you?" he demands.
"Oookay…." I say, stalling while I grope around in my pocket for a transfer. People are waiting on the curb because I am blocking the entrance. They look irritated.
As I am pulling out my transfer and showing it to the bus driver, he says, sarcastically:
"Do me a favor. What does this sign say?" He taps the sign with his finger.
"Uhhh… pay as you leave?" I offer feebly.
"That’s right."
I leave the bus feeling stupid. At some point I must’ve passed out of the Pay As You Enter zone, gone through the Ride Free Area, and come back out in a Pay As You Leave Zone. Note to self: always get a transfer, or you could end up being trapped on the bus forever, unable to disembark.