Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Bus Driver Report: Mind Taking My Poop?

Paul, my early morning walking buddy for more than 15 years, recently took a part time job as a bus driver. He doesn't blog, so unless I relate the story he told me this morning, it would be lost to the larger world, and that would be a shame.

Paul is driving north on Vine Street in Urbana earlier this week, when a young woman with a dog flags down the bus. The dog is clearly not a seeing-eye dog so she is not going to be able to board the bus with it, but Paul stops anyway, assuming the woman must be in some kind of distress. He opens the door and notices that she is carrying a plastic bag with dog poop in it. She doesn't try to board the bus, but gestures toward the bus's trash container with the dog poop and asks, "Do you mind?"

"Yes, I mind," Paul replies and closes the door and drives off.

The writer, Ian Frazier, has a funny essay in the May 7, 2007 issue of The New Yorker about the difference between being an idiot and idiocy. Idiocy can be committed by people who do not meet the technical definition of being an idiot. So, I will leave it to my readers to decide -- was this an idiot, or merely idiocy?

7 comments:

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

I had to read that story twice; I thought I must surely have missed an explanatory crucial point, but no.

I'm checking off the "Idiot" box on my ballot.

And your friend should start a bus-driving blog, pronto. If you can't talk him into it, keep passing on his stories.

Lauren D. McKinney said...

Great story. My answer? Moron.

Crockhead said...

So, one vote for idiot and a write in for moron. I think it was probably a college student, so I'm voting for idiocy. Thanks for stopping by, gnight and Lauren. Isn't that story unbelievable? I wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't know the source. It is too bizarre to be made up.

Lydia said...

Heee - I vote for idiocy! Though it's the second great dog poop story I've heard recently (a friend's wife wanted to leave it in the kitchen trash cuz it would "stink up the outside trash"). So maybe there's something about the fumes that make otherwise reasonable people stumble about idiocy?

Anonymous said...

So I wake up, turn on the 'puter, and what do I see in the RSS feed? The crockhead is writing about poop! Now, me writing about poop... I doubt that would surprise anyone. But here we have books, movies, Carnegie Hall... poop? Some days, it's just plain good to have high-speed internet!

Thanks for starting my day with a laugh. On the scale of wonderment, the offering of poop certainly beats my 13 bottles of beer on the wall.

Patry Francis said...

I love Ian Frazier. This story gives me yet another reason to renew my subscription to The New Yorker.

Debra Hope said...

Okay, I've got a bus-poop story, too, but hadn't thought about it for a long time . . . and it's too long for a comment, so you'll have to go to the "Old Secretary" link below. This one's not bad, but I gotta tell you, mine's better!