People I'm Next To

I am next to this man. He is tall and slender. He has on a white t-shirt, and some bright blue jeans, obviously new. He is wearing a floppy brimmed hat, which looks kinda weird and wraps around shades that also look kinda weird. Both articles of clothing could be considered practical, but both are for keeping the sun out of the eyes. It seems an odd choice, but it could be his sense of style, and that's cool. What's not cool is this whole puppy situation. Head's up dudes, I am not really a dog person. I respect the little land sharks, but I am always half-convinced they are going to eat me. What follows is not about that. In fact, if you bear with some bluntness you will see that today I have found myself a hound sympathizer. I'm going to lay down a premise: dogs are kinda dumb. I don't mean that as a putdown, I just mean that they aren't equipped to informed choices that humans arguably have the capacity to make. So assuming my premise is accepted, a logic...

I’m next to this guy. He is a bigger guy with unruly bright red hair, and what I believe is referred to as a neckbeard, also unruly. He has a blue Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned over a bright blue t-shirt with the Linux penguin on it. He has cargo shorts, high grey socks, and some worn out but comfy looking sneakers on. He is pale. Not a cool, mysterious, and possibly a child of the night pale, but a pasty, works too much, and definitely child of the neon office light pale. This guy looks annoying. I don’t like to be general while being pejorative, I prefer a pointed barb. But a wide shot is what’s going on today. He has some undefinable aura that oozes from him that almost physically pushes me back. Pure annoyance. But I persevere, surely this (probably) human repulsion dynamo will give me something, and he does. This man-thing is a criminal! “Fucking five-o, keep pulling me over.” While blithely ignoring how silly it sounds when he says ‘five-o’, he relates to some buddies that he...

I am next to this lady. She has on kelly green sneakers, bright white glasses, and a maroon hat. She is maybe in her early or mid-40s, and she has excellent posture. If I am being straight with you, I don’t really know what excellent posture looks like, but I do know how to eavesdrop. In this case my creepy listening skills have informed me that she has been a yoga instructor for around a decade, so I assume that the posture she is posturing is, in fact, good posture. It also informs me that there is trouble in yoga land. She is chatting with a former student, who mentions not seeing her class on some listing or other, and is curious about, “What’s up with that?” Our instructor relates that she had been working for this company for a while, and was informed that they were moving away from her brand of yoga. So, she won't be teaching there anymore. She is pretty chill about the whole affair, “Oh I’m doing fine, I found another place to teach, and all.” And that’s it. The two...