A Rose By Any Other Name...

A rose by any other name is still an angry drunk homeless woman that has nothing better to do than to ride the bus and angrily assault other passengers and the drivers.

Last week, I reported on my Facebook timeline that I'd picked up an angry homeless woman who then proceeded to nitpick and ridicule me for the following two hours.  She returned again, on Friday, but this time she was accompanied by her daughter, who is equally as angry and drunk as her mother.

Day began by my picking them up on 8th Street.  They were slow to get moving, so another patron boarded the bus ahead of them.  He never pushed them aside or anything.  Just boarded the bus, minding his own business.  This action prompted the daughter to rush onto the bus and verbally shakedown the rider.  Then once seated, the inebriated duo proceeded to verbally assault me, relentlessly.  I laughed it off at first.  For most of the ride downtown, actually.  Admittedly, however, I admit it began to affect me.

I know it shouldn't bother me.  That I shouldn't allow such behavior to affect my attitude, but one can only be a punching bag for so long before the abuse naturally seeps into the cracks.

My father was a terrible alcoholic when I was growing up and what he'd do on some of his benders is toss on some old records then sit me down at the table and he'd tell me what my problems were and how worthless I was, between swigs of his strongly mixed glasses of rye and 7-up.  Many o' weekends were spent at the kitchen table, methodically being broken down to the minstrel sounds of Roger Whittaker and Ray Price, with some Willie peppered in there, for good measure.  To this day, I can't hear Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" without reminiscing about what a worthless piece of shit I was in the eyes of my drunken father.  It's bittersweet, really.  Good song, with terrible memories.

Nothing can be done about the angry drunk woman, commonly known as "Rose" among all the drivers.  As affected by the abuse as I was, I was relieved to learn that every driver has this negative experience with this woman.  She's been forcefully removed from many buses, by police and other authorities, but she always comes back.  She refuses to pay when she rides the bus, but feels she has the privilege to abuse everyone around her.  No matter who you are, she's gonna be a gunnin' for ya.

With the lifestyle she's been leading, for what I presume has been years, I'm certain she's not long for this world.  One day in the not-too-distant future, I'm sure, I'll be sitting in the drivers lounge, downtown, and will hear some some news about the passing of "Rose".  I predict that some of the drivers will trade anecdotes, fondly remembering how she called them a "worthless cocks*cker" or worse.  We'll all have a laugh and go on about our day, never giving another thought to this woman.

It's sad that a person could possibly live the span of a lifetime and have nothing to show for it, but a few stories showcasing her anger or pissing herself on a city transit bus.  It's pitiful.

A Rose By Any Other Name

"A rose by any other name, is still a rose" is how the saying goes. If one thing is known as such in one place, but referred to as another name elsewhere, the object in question is still the same.

Not entirely true. Not these days, in the age of copyright infringements and such. A kleenex made by any other company, is a facial tissue, even though people will often request a "kleenex" be passed to them. Photocopies are the same. I've heard the term "Xerox this" more than a few times, even though the copy machine was a Canon or a Ricoh.

A term that's always boggled my mind, however, was U.F.O. Generally, an Unidentified Flying Object should refer to any indescribable piece of crap flying through the air. Instead, it's automatically associated with flying saucers and little green men, bent on global invasion. Even when used to clearly explain the inexplicable, people automatically jump to the conclusion that it's alien-associated, and therefore you're either high on drugs or a mental crackpot.

I was watching an episode of SyFy's "Fact or Faked", in which the team investigated a trio of lights that were noticed by thousands over Time's Square in NYC, then again two days later over El Paso, Texas. After a number of inventive experiments, they found success with a triad of skydivers, who dove out into the night sky, with lit flares attached to their feet. Falling first together, the three then separated and formed a triangle in the night sky. The experiment duplicated the original video perfectly, and furthermore, it was revealed by the Air Force in the area, that it was three of their personnel practicing for an air show, on the night in question.

However, on the night that the "Fact or Faked" team were performing the experiments over a Los Angeles night sky, 911 was swarmed with reports of UFO's in the sky. Although, SyFy came forward to reveal that they were responsible for the mysterious light show, many were in doubt, opting instead to believe they were flying saucers.

Those concerned, were correct in their equating the lights over L.A., as being unidentified flying objects, once the flying objects (which were actually falling objects), were identified, they still referred to them as U.F.O.'s.

So a rose by any other name is still a rose.., and an idiot by any other name..., is still an idiot!