posted
I’ve just had the worst experience of my life. I was on the bus coming home. (Isn’t public transportation wonderful.) This woman gets on the bus and starts spewing the most vile stream of hatred I have ever heard. She goes off on blacks, Hispanics, low income people, and people who dress differently. If you’ve ever ridden a city bus, you know there are a multitude of styles of dress out there. She started calling people children of Satan. She even wondered aloud how many children the bus driver had fathered out of wedlock. The insinuation being that all minorities and lower income people live in sin and don’t believe in marriage.
I seriously got scared. I thought she was going to incite a riot. There were people talking about taking her down.
Now I know that there have been some heated debates on Hatrack, but for the most part we respect the fact that others have differing opinions.
I hope somebody will inject some humor into the responses to this post. By the time I got home I was grouchy and disgusted. The day started out pretty good too.
Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Someone with that little impulse control in public is likely mentally ill. Which doesn't make the experience any less frightening (quite the contrary!), but does make it slightly more understandable.
I used to ride the bus to and from UCLA, and met some . . . interesting people. Some of them were headed to the neuropsych center at UCLA; others SHOULD have been! Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I really was scared. The people on the bus were getting madder and madder. I thought somebody was going to punch her. She started out talking to herself and then started directing her comments to individual people. People kept telling her to shut up, but she just kept going and going.
How can anyone be that stupid? Maybe she was mentally ill, Idon't know.
Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Derrell: A week from now, you will look back on this and laugh. You will make it one of your standard I-had-this-crazy-experience stories.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Out of morbid interest, what part of the country did she sound like she was from?
Though really, I have to say, if hearing another ultra-ultra-conservative wax laconic on the evils of liberalism like love that doesn't fit her homoracial and ultra-religious definitions is the worst experience of your life, you definitely haven't fallen in love enough times.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I had an...interesting...experience at a lunch counter once. It wasn't as hateful as your experience (((Derrell))), but it concerned me. I was sitting at the counter, writing and drinking iced tea (a regular experience for me before I had The Boy...I miss it), and a dirty mumbling man sat next to me. He mumbled on and on and tried to engage me in conversation. I wrote a poem about it, and made 'mmhmm' noises at him to keep him placated. Eventually he was escorted away by one of the servers. Poor man.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
People who have Tourette's Syndrome often say words, phrases, and sentences that they do not mean to voice -- and often do not reflect their own opinions -- but rather give speech to that which they personally find offensive&embarassing.
It's kind of like random cursing after hitting oneself on the finger with a hammer. Except victims of this disease have a much lower ability to cope with stress -- even the stress of minor nervousness -- and audibly act out by saying something loud, and often rude. And the stare(s) they receive in return stresses them into an embarassment that triggers further pseudo-cursing, often directed at characteristic(s) of those s/he sees staring at her/him. Which in turn change the stares into hateful looks from viewers, which triggers embarassment&fear leading to an even more extreme round of pseudo-cursing.
It's almost like their brains have a direct link from the stress-emotions center to the personally-distasteful-language center to the speech center, without passing through the purposeful-thought center which censors/stops rude behaviour in most people.
Instead of getting riled up yourself, just assume that people who speak in such an uncontrolled manner have Tourette's. And forgive them. They can be quite nice people, who have enough difficulties trying to deal with self-affecting problems that their syndrome creates in the rest of their life. Even if it isn't Tourette's, don't need to stress yourself more than everyday life already does.
posted
aspectre, just curious, but do people with Tourette's have full sentence tics? I could probably phrase that more coherently, but I think you know what I am asking. I'm just curious, because most of the cases I have seen (just on TV and one in person, casually) are limited to single words, short phrases, and sounds.
And I always try to believe that persons like this are either a) not in control of their faculties or b) unfortunately ill-raised through no fault of their own. I am cultivating forgiveness. It's *hard*! Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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Lalo, thank you. Next time I'm confronted with an ignorant loudmouth, I'll be sure to reference their viewpoints as "homoracial." I'm sure they'll appreciate the association Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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(((((Derrell))))) I know. I love public transports, and still I hate when those things happens. When I arrived in Lille (which is a big town on France criterium) I came from a small village, and found normal to smile and to look at people in the underground or bus. I stopped about two weeks after my first day in Lille, for when you look at people, they feel bad and start to insult you, or they think you are a sort of whore, and are pleased with it and try to get your to their place. *sigh* So I started to read in public transports, and even like that sometimes you hear these sort of things, and feel bad.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I don't know if people rememeber my slightly-embellished account (it's somewhere on this site...) of a commuter rail ride last summer-ish. It wasn't as bile filled, but I bet it was a lot weirder.
My girlfriend, back before we had moved in, took the bus to work from my apartment a couple times a week. She had 3 or 4 experiences with these types of people. And this was in Boston, supposedly the liberal Mecca of the world. Or at least a liberal Medina.
posted
Of course, I know I'm a weird duck and all, but I actually find these encounters extremely interesting, even if the social propriety part of me squirms.
posted
I vote for nuts. Last week I was thinking about a "crazy or evil?" thread. Hopefully compassion for the mentally ill transcends our political leanings.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Now comes the maddening part, what you should have said.
Here is Dan Raven's top ten list of things you could have said that would have resulted in either calming the crowd or starting a riot. At least it would have gotten you the applause of the rest of the crowd.
10) Tourettes is tragic dear, isn't it. 9) Maybe, but they aren't near as bad as b____ old white ladies. 8) Don't make me stop this bus. 7) Ma'am, if the world is in such poor shape, may I suggest you get off. 6) Dear, if you can't say something nice about somebody, then shut the @#$@ up. 5) So when do you audition for Jerry Springer? 4) Psst, miss, you forgot your white hood. 3) So you believe that that all these lesser races are just born evil. What is your excuse. 2) Well who pissed in your oat bran today?
and the number one thing that could have been said....
posted
((Derrell)) I'm so sorry. I don't think it's that unusual, though. She was probably off her meds. It happens.
When I was in Wilkes-Barre, PA for training, I took a flight back for Ron's graduation. I got there early, and was reading. I was already in a bad mood, because the porter who drove me from the hotel kept hitting on me. He actually asked me my sign. *snicker* Actually, I was there so long that two out of the three porters hit on me or gave me gifts. Of course, the third one was the one that was cute, and normal. I told you guys I was a freakshow magnet.
Anyway, this salesman sits down right next to me (we are the only two waiting for this particular flight, since we were early), and he starts talking about blacks and jews and public schools and all sorts of crap. I ignore him once I realize he's spewing hate. I mean, no nodding, no noises no eye contact. I didn't him to think I agreed with him, and I wasn't the sort to smack a stranger. At least back then.
He sat next to me on the plane, even though it wasn't his assigned seat. Tried to buy me wine, or something. Told several gruesome plane crash stories, completely unaware of the lady in the aisle seat, who was clutching a rosary and praying, obviously not a great flyer.
I finally ditched him in Atlanta by going into the ladies room after tellinghim I had to run to make my connection, and No, I didn't have time for lunch. It was a lie, but I didn't feel guilty about it at all.
The thing I can't figure is, why do these people single me out? I have had at least three such experiences in airports alone. One while I was waiting for Ron to get off his plane. They just come up to me. Happened at McDonalds a few times. A kid just came up to me, shouting, "Don't laugh at me! It isn't nice!" I had not even been aware he was there.
Went to the mall with my mom once, and this guy followed us around, muttering "Pretty, pretty" under his breath. I was cute back then, but not THAT cute. I must give off some vibration that attracts mentally unstable people. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
That reminds me of a personal story: my mother was pregnant (of me). Six, seven months. My father went to her university so they could come home together by bus (mother sudied near home, but at night). Oh, yes...my mother is blond, and my father is what we call a "mulato" (mixed racial heritage. Very common in Brazil). The bus was full, but a man offered his place to my mom, since she was pregnant. The guy at his side offerend his place to my father so they could be together. My mom tells me that my father was hugging her tightly and, sometimes, caressed her belly, because he was very happy about soon becoming a father for the first time. Then, an old man with foreign accent started to speak loudly to the guys who gave seats to my parents, saying things like this:
"Why did you give your seats to them? Now, that F$%$ mulato will be rubbing in our faces the whole trip the fact he banged and knocked up a blonde! And the filthy woman is happy about it! This F#%#$ country is going to hell!"
Well...let's say that my father wanted to smash the old man's face right away, but my mother held him seated. The guy proceeded to make fun of them and their "mixed child" while they sat motionless and tears welled from my mothers eyes. My father says mother drew blood from his arm because she dug her nails in it.
Finally, mother and father came out of the bus. She says that there was pure venom in my father eyes, and that she had to whisper "remember, he's nothing. You'll be a father soon, that's what matter" in his ear, so he would not break the old man's neck (my father is strong, and a Karate brown belt, at the time).
I'll never forget this story. Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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They should've said to the guy "oh, don't worry, we got blond-guy sperm at the doctor's and used that. We're not CRAZY! Just in love." And then start smooching.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Derrel, if this is the worst experience of your life, you're either 5 years old or very, very lucky. Count your blessings and be grateful you aren't that woman. Can you imagine what it must be like to have to live in her head?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Looking at the date this thread started, I'm wondering if the Dobbie just performed a random resurrection (rooty toot toot...).
Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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JNSB, I myself wonder sometimes at the seemingly random threads that get ressurrected.
Eduardo, I am deeply touched by your story, particularly the dignity with which your mother handled it. Some people, the only way to deal with them is to ignore their vitriolic comments.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Wow, that's your worst experience ever? Care to trade lives with me?
I'm surprised how many people here are suggesting she's nuts. She doesn't sound nuts to me - lots of people think that way. They're just usually smart enough to conceal it.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I'm all for it. Though I think Canada already has that covered. Now, if I could just figure out a way to live there . . .
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I think that the country it too mixed for seceding to ever really work. I mean, it's not like all the Republicans live in one part of the country or anything.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I was searching for something else and I just happened to find this thread which mentioned W-B.
Posts: 1794 | Registered: Jul 2002
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