The Art Of Sleeping

What is it with sleeping on public transit? And by this, I do not mean shutting one’s eyes after a long day and relaxing, I am talking about head back, twitching, mouth open oblivious to your surroundings. And what is it about these people always sitting next to me. I am a magnet for all things annoying at the best of times. People are rude to me for no apparent reason. I have been cursed out while on my bike by relatively normal looking people, who used words that made even me blush and left me speechless.

It has made me take a private vow that I will never, ever, sleep on public transit. Four years later I have kept that vow.

I do not have an issue with someone sitting beside me closing their eyes. If only this were the case. On one trip, a sweet little old Italian woman sat next to me. Within ten minutes she had practically fallen across my lap in full slumber. I wanted to shake her, to move her, but I thought, hey, it’s a little old lady. The mirth of my situation was apparent as I watched everyone on the bus looking at me pityingly or suppressing laughter. Now and again when we hit a rough patch she would jerk awake and sit up, look at me shying and proclaim, "I cannot stay wake on da bus." Five minutes later down she would go again.

Another time a young man sat next to me and was falling into me the entire ride. I tried crouching over to the window but this just gave him more room to expand. He would do that sudden jerk as though you are falling sleep that people do when entering the twilight zone. He would suddenly fall forward. He would fall sideways. He would snore, limbs twitching like a dog that is having a bad dream. I did amuse myself by taking his picture with my cell phone. I was aghast, but since he was asleep he could not see the deep frown I had saved for him.

The funniest of all was not long ago, a very tall man in his thirties sat next to me. He was quite large in girth as well and I was immediately pressed into the corner. Within minutes he was snoring and his head was jerking to the left and right. Suddenly he lurched and smashed me in the head with his arm. It hurt. This did not wake him. My immediate defensive stance was to elbow him. Hard. This woke him up. He looked at me in astonishment.

"Did you just ….. elbow me?" he asked incredulously.

"Uh huh, yes I did," I answered, more than ready to provide an explanation as to why.

He looked at me as though I were a total freak, some certified out of control type. He got up quickly, looked at me and said "I am outta here crazy lady" and walked to another seat.

As I watched him jerking and pitching next to another poor rider I tried to suppress my laugher the duration of the ride. This did not help my case.