Author: Justin Meckes

I saw a woman waiting for the bus, on a Sunday.
The buses don’t run on Sunday where I live.
So as I walked past her I was considering
whether or not I should say,
“Are you waiting for the bus?”
But it seemed foolish.
She was sitting on the bench braiding her hair,
not caring whether or not the bus would come.

I’d ruin her day.

Maybe that’s why I chose not to intervene.
And I kept on walking.
It’s none of my business if
this woman is waiting on a Sunday bus.
And how do I know she wasn’t just
taking a break on a walk of her own?
She decided to stop and rest,
and she’s not waiting on a bus at all.

I saw a taxi drive by a little farther up the street
and I wondered if she’d called a taxi, saying,
“I’m at the bus stop on Hamilton Rd.”
I then wondered if she was going very far away.
Could she just walk after the Sunday bus failed to show?

Is there a Sunday bus and I don’t know?

Either way, I kept thinking about
what I should say to someone waiting
for a bus that may never come.
The reason it bothered me is that
I know how it feels to wait.
On buses, on people who are late,
and on the future we create.

I ordered a pair of sunglasses I saw on Bruce Lee,
but they look better on Bruce Lee than me.

My wife is very attractive to mosquitos.
She says so herself.
For this reason, it’s very important that
we never allow a mosquito into the house.
There would be an absolute bloodlust
and a lot of little red bumps.
So, we take precautions
just like anyone would.

For example, getting out of the house is a race.
We have a countdown and a step-by-step process.
The front door gets the key in the deadbolt
before the storm door is opened.
Not after, but before.
That’s the important part.
The storm door then is opened,
giving us seconds to close the front door,
turn the key, and shut the storm door behind us.

I have taken a storm door to the shoulder before.

You might be wondering why we don’t stop at the front door.
You’re not thinking like my wife.
What if a mosquito or mosquitoes get trapped between
the storm door and the front door?
Well, they’re getting inside next time you go
into the house.

So, we have to be quick.
We can’t waste our time when we’re going out.
Otherwise, we might get bit.
She might say ouch.

It could happen six or seven times
in the matter of minutes.
And I’ll get blamed, not the mosquito.
I wasn’t fast enough.
That’s just what it’s like
when you have a mosquito spouse.

My wife and I were taking a walk
when we came upon this woman
who was attempting to drag
a couch along the sidewalk.

I was prepared to walk right past the crazy couch lady,
but my wife stopped and said, “Can we help you?”

I couldn’t believe it.

And it was as ridiculous as I thought.
The crazy couch lady was trying to drag
this couch she’d found on the sidewalk
about a quarter of a mile back to her house.
Sometimes people do leave furniture
on the side of the road in our neighborhood,
but that’s not a reason to think you can drag
a sofa that far.

So, we helped.

I picked up one side and my wife
and the couch lady picked up the other side.
We huffed along that entire quarter mile,
but not without stopping more than once.
My biceps burned.
My forearms were torched,
but we got that couch through the doorway
(what a fiasco it would have been
if we couldn’t have done that)
and into the couch lady’s apartment.

She thanked us profusely
and explained she was a poor college student.
She then offered to buy us something to drink,
but we didn’t accept.
We were sweating
and tired
and just wanted to rest.

Now, we sometimes see that crazy couch lady
walking around the neighborhood.
I feel obligated to wave,
but I cross the street because I’m not sure
what she’s going to want to drag home next.