Emergency Lysol Spraydown

I apologize for my blog hiatus. I have now returned. I had an extremely busy weekend! I ran/walked the 5K, I taught Relief Society, took a final, and prepared for a midterm (today--just finished) and organized the kitchen with Josh (he did most of the work). I hate to have this particular post have to be what finally got me to write again. Let me give it to you straight:

A smelly old lady sat on me.

Yes, I'm serious. She smelled like urine, and she sat on me. I was on the bus, on my way home from class, and I was once again traumatized by the Free Fare Zone passengers. A rickety old lady with a very dirty hat who smelled like urine was sitting across from me. I usually sit next to a bar/pole so I can grab on and not slide around--plus it can sometimes provide a barrier between your personal space (which is always MUCH larger on the bus) and someone else's (or their lack of...). This time the pole was on my right and the lady got up from across the aisle, and sat down Right ON me. She was quite honestly sitting on my thigh. It wasn't an, "oh, pardon me, I didn't mean to sit on you!" because when I tried to squish even further away from her in hopes she would realize she was on me, she moved with me. She didn't get off my leg for a good 3 minutes. No Joke. It felt like 3 days she was sitting on me, especially since she was close enough that I could get a more personal whiff of multiple odors wafting from her body. As if just sitting on me wasn't enough, she reached over and grabbed the pole on my right side (she was on my left leg) and gripped tightly for a good minute. Her bony elbow was taunting my nose. FINALLY, when I thought I could not go on, she dropped her arm and scooted off my leg, but her legs were still flush with mine, her stench still penetrating my sniffer. I looked around, curious as to the number of available seats on the bus. I counted each head, and came up with 5. 1 was me, 1 was her, and 1 was a man in a wheelchair. That means there were only 2 other seats on the whole bus that were occupied, and she felt the pressing need to sit ON me, and then share my seat with me. What makes this even more astounding is the fact that I was on the bench in the front of the bus, where there are 3-4 seats all next to each other, not just 2. G-R-O-S-S! I am learning that I have a real need for personal space, something I was unable to communicate to her. This bus problem is not even one that could have been remedied by headphones (as most are, which is why I have them-whether or not they're hooked into any music...). When I returned back to work (I shuddered every step until I reached the bathroom) I went directly to the bathroom to wash, no--scrub--my hands. A fellow co-worker was absolutely brilliant. He suggested I spray with Lysol. I think he may have been joking, because there was great surprise when I responded with, "How fast can you get it here?" He attempted to spray me down, but he was a little light on the trigger. I snatched the can away and sprayed, no--soaked my whole left side of my body. I still felt there was a layer of grime I could not wash away, so I had to visit the vending machine downstairs in the breakroom for a delicious Rice Krispie treat to take me to my happy place. I felt I could not find my happy place on my own, without some assistance--hence the rice krispie treat. Lucky me, I only have to ride that particular bus one more time--a week from Thursday for my final. Perhaps I will drive--then I'll be the only one invading my personal space, and it will be my own stink I have to smell. Yich! I'm not sure if I'll ever come clean. (Besides being old and rickety, she kept twitching/convulsing, so I'm inclined to believe she had a disease--hopefully NOT communicable...and she really wasn't SUPER old, just like late 60's.)

By the way--consider yourself warned--the Free Fare Zone comes with a price...