BUS STORY # 486 (Sounds Like)

Downloaded from The Blaze

It’s mid-afternoon on an almost-full Rapid. I’m lost in my own thoughts and feeling a little like nodding off when I hear a woman say something from the back of the bus that jolts me awake.

I’m not the only one. I’m sitting in one of the aisle-facing bench seats just in front of the pleats, and everyone on my side and the opposite side has reacted as well, all of us turning back to where we heard what we thought we heard:

“He saw me naked, eh?”

I spot a small woman sitting in an aisle seat near the back doors. I know it’s her when I hear her laugh. She’s laughing as if whoever it was that saw her naked is the funniest thing.

She’s round and short, with orange pants, a dark gray-light gray striped shirt, and an orange hijab! Big sunglasses. She’s smiling and talking and I quickly realize two things: she’s talking into a cell phone mike on the wires which run up under her scarf; she’s speaking something other than English.

Something doesn't fit here, but that’s definitely the voice.

She continues chatting away, pausing to listen, laughing, chatting away. She’s oblivious to all the attention her co-riders in front are giving her.

I look her over once more, and I am convinced what we heard was a foreign phrase that came out sounding like “he saw me naked, eh” in English. I can see the others drawing the same conclusion now. You might say we very clearly misheard.

Too bad, because that laugh of hers afterward was wonderful.