And then there (nearly) was one
I was bitten by a man on bus today. It's a good thing that I was wearing jeans (you can see the bite marks--the man had strong teeth)Imagine the headlines if, following my custom of the past two days, I'd been wearing a skirt. I'd have probably died after getting rabies or something equally nasty.
Washington Times: "Foreigner dies on bus after being bitten"
Washington Post: "Tragedy for international student"
Nepali Times: "Local girl bitten by (bloody/crazy/mad) American"
Bangkok Post: "Girl bitten by (bloody/crazy/mad) farang"
The Sun: "Killer Yank bites foreign student"
and so on...
Thankfully, a couple of years of playing rugby in the past (except the co-ed version is called "touch football" since girls can't be tackled by blokes, you know) came into action as I dragged my foot away, pushed aside the man (who was lying on the floor of the bus with his arms around my foot, trying to bite me) and, after performing a jump that just might have beaten the world's long jump record, ended up at the back of the bus. The other passengers yelled at the driver and we ended up at our destination with all our limbs intact. Everybody filed out the back door, leaving the man still on the floor in the front.
I'm sorry to sound very The Sun/Daily Mirror about this but, really, what IS DC coming to? The interesting part (once my legs had stopped acting as though they were made of spaghetti) was that the entire bus was somehow hugely sympathetic towards me and a couple of women patted me on the back as I left. Tocqueville would probably have said something about this.
I'm just saying if the man had been any better at biting, yous would have been left with E. No PhD-ing, no Big Name Meeting, no more Liverpool (though there might be dead Liverpool players where I'd end up at) and no more nationalist sentiments.
posted by Priya @ 11:50 PM
4 Comments:
For someone who is addicted to football, your reaction was not what i would have predicted. I would have pictured a good swift kick aiming to put the guy low and to the right of the bus driver/keeper.
The man was much bigger than a football, unfortunately. At least I figured out I'm definitely a flight not fight type of person. No Samurai-style fighting from me, not at all!
E, rightly, tells me The Washington Times would have led with "Foreigner steals American Job; Gets in way of (patriotic)teeth"
I'm not sure that kicking is the best response to DC bus-biters. But then, I've never met one.
With a week being bitten by bus-biter and then having my nationalist credentials misconstrued on the train, it's been a rather chatty week on public transport for me.
Next step for 2006: Be scary. Act scary. Look scary and intimidating (tough when one's about 5'4")
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