by Jacqueline Dodd

Created on: October 25, 2009

I'm sitting on the Bayfield bus on an uncomfortably hot summer day and all I want, all I need is to just get home to my apartment. It's the second bus I have to take to get from work to my home at the opposite end of the city and today it feels more like being packed into a sardine can than using public transit. That or being shipped off in a cargo container full of illegal aliens - uncomfortable, cramped and just wanting to get the hell out. The driver pulls over and lets a scruffy looking couple on board. The woman looks mean and possibly crazy. There are no seats for these new passengers and the woman isn't happy about it. She starts yelling about a girl who won't get up and let her sit down, despite the fact that the girl is half her age and the woman has had not one, not two, but three knee surgeries in the last year. Her companion tries to calm her down but she's having none of it. The girl is a bitch, she says, and disrespectful to boot. I'm looking around, trying to figure out who she's talking about when I catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye.

Is she talking about me? My heart starts beating faster and I feel my face flush. I'm not good with confrontation. I want nothing to do with it. She's probably not talking about me. She seems to be looking around wildly at everyone. But she might be. And what do I do if she starts yelling at as opposed to about me? She's obviously not well and that's not something I want to be playing around with. I lower my head and stare at the back of the seat in front of me. It implores me to SMOKE WEED EVERY DAY in large black letters. That's the last thing I need to do right now, I think to myself. I'm paranoid enough as it is. My mouth is dry and I feel like my breath is coming out in gasps. My chest is tight and my thoughts start racing. What if I miss my stop because this bus is so crammed that I can't see out the windows? Am I breathing too loudly? Is the person sitting next to me getting irritated by it? In the end I manage to get off at the right stop without being confronted by a mentally ill bag lady with bad knees, but it's already started and I just have to ride it out and hope it won't last long. Welcome to my large scale, Friday afternoon panic attack.

I've had plenty of them while riding the bus since I moved to this city, and for good reason. Most of my fellow commuters are non-threatening. They just want to get to where they're going in peace. They sit there with their books and iPods and are

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