8.06.2008

It was scary and on a bus, like in Speed, except we weren't going all that fast...

Does any one of us really know, deep down, what we are capable of doing to another human being under stressful conditions? Do we have what it takes to rise to the occasion and defend our fellow man? Or will we cave, telling ourselves we took the prudent, if less heroic, path? *

The scene: A small band of bus passengers suffers through a late-morning commute.

The bus driver: A husky, seemingly sane man, moving with the kind of pained gestures that signal either long-standing back pain or one hell of a hangover.

Suddenly, whatever had been holding together the last of the driver's composure broke.

"What is that NOISE?" he screamed. To thirty chattering people, riding a squeaky bus, on a crowded city street, in one of the loudest cities in the world.**

"Shut UP! What is that NOISE?"

He was now sitting on the quietest bus I've ever been on. We eyed him warily. No one risked speaking.

"That NOISE? Who has a radio?"

Dead quiet. Eyes straight ahead, people started shoving i-pods and cell phones into bags as discreetly as possible.

"Does someone have a RADIO?"

The tension was too much. Finally, a voice from the back called, "It's a speaker phone. Someone on here had a speaker phone."

"Who?"

Another one decided to save himself, "That guy!"

The woman on the seat beside the accused dropped her phone into her purse and froze.

The falsely accused man stood. "Hell no. I got no phone," he said.

The bus driver just looked at him.

With a light sigh, the crowd's chosen patsy moved toward the door.

"Getting out of THIS shit," he said. The doors squeaked shut behind him.

No one spoke as the bus moved on.


* Admittedly not the kind of questions you want to be asking in this town.

** WIHDC has not checked this statistic, but it seems about right.

27 comments:

  1. Why did you remove my comment???? It was thought out, albeit critical, and referenced your latest post.

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  2. That's f#cking hysterical!

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  3. Hahaha! Oh.my.god.

    Best.post.ever.

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  4. George,

    While your trolling was definitely of better quality than in the past, I regret to inform you that, unfortunately, it did not meet WIHDC's needs at this time. Check out m@ for tips on our standards. You are welcome to try again.

    Warm Regards,

    Liz

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  5. YOU ARE SO RIGHT, LIZ! THE BUSES HERE ARE DEFINITELY SCARY! WHENEVER I RIDE THE L2, I PRETEND I'M SANDRA BULLOCK FROM SPEED.

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  6. Liz,

    Why do you constantly call me a troll??? I simply voice my frustrations with the blog so far. I have been reading and commenting on this blog for the better part of 5 years, so please, get a new line...its getting stale, much like this blog.

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  7. The trolls will leave you alone...

    But first, you must answer three riddles!

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  8. So your point is what? You hate DC because of random crazy bus experiences. This isn't a Myspace blog.

    P.S. I doubt it even went down like that.

    "Hell no. I got no phone"

    Reaaallly?

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  9. OMG looks like this blog is about to get some competition from someone.

    http://www.whyihateliz.blogspot.com/

    I hear posts will be infrequent and nonsensical as well.

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  10. generally i agree with the sentiment of liz-sucktitude, but this is a great post and i hope the start of a new trend.

    it brings to mind a terrible thing about dc: dumb thug kids constantly blaring rap music out of their cell phones while a bunch of complacent yuppies do nothing about it because of some sort of fear to "offend the locals." well, finally a bus driver and the bus passengers had enough of that shit and basically kicked that motherfucker off the bus. good going. for no reason should i have to listen to your shitty music on my commute. for no fucking reason.

    good post liz.

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  11. CRG:

    Yes, it was cute. Yes it was sort of funny. But it could be about a bus in any city in the world. How does it relate to DC proper? It doesn't at all? She had something funny happen to her and she ran to her Macbook thinking she had something to finally shut everyone up with.

    People who are from here or those who have spent any amount of time here are desensitized to this shit. This is nothing. I expect better from a blog that was once profiled in Washingtonian.

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  12. patrick,

    what you're saying makes perfect sense. i guess it comes down to what you want to see out of this blog. honestly i have no problems with personal accounts that may make sense in regards to any city, because oftentimes even if they could relate to a city other than dc i still find it funny.

    i didn't live in dc during the time of james f (or didn't know about this blog, either way) and the archives for this blog are unavailable so i dont know how he wrote. but i know that rusty would write personal shit sometimes. like about when he got mugged. that mugging could relate to any city.

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  13. so i guess my question is what do you want out of this blog?

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  14. "I doubt it even went down like that."

    Liz, I think Patrick is challenging your journalistic integrity.

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  15. I want irreverent, humorous and vitriolic statements on this city, the people who love it and everything else that people who love to hate dc enjoy reading.

    Not posts on her bad (funny?) experience on the bus. She doesn't even mention the route or the neighborhood she was riding in.

    I had a bad experience on the bus this morning too. So effing what. It's the freakin' bus. What do you expect?

    Sorry, I don't mean to go on and on about this. I've read this blog for years and never felt the need to really comment because there was no need. Now, unfortunately, the comments have become the best part and I've become a "troll".

    It's a shame really. And to make matters worse, she seems to enjoy pissing people off that have even somewhat enjoyed this blog for so long.

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  16. Hey folks, I've started my own lame-ass blog if anyone is bored. And no, its not about hating DC and its not about hating Liz either.

    Somehwere in one of her comment battles Liz made a valid point. If you guys don't like this blog anymore then don't read it. Personally the pattern of non-hate posts, followed by everyone leaving comments telling Liz how much she sucks, followed by Liz deleting/responding to said comments, rinse repeat, and so on, was amusing at first but I'm kinda bored with it. Truth is, she ain't forcing anyone to stick around.

    I want to beleive Liz truly hates DC and just hasn't discovered how to express it in a way that the traditional audience is accustomed. She will either kill the blog or attract an entirely different readership, but either way it's not the same blog that James F and Rusty gave us.

    Give up, folks. She don't care and theres nothing you can do. Find some new blogs or start your own. That's what I'm doing. Peace out.

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  17. I've rarely ever posted a comment as most people who post comments here are relative cretins with pea-brains. But to be honest, I'm finding WIHDC lacking with your entries. They lack the general hate and ire that came with Rusty's posts which were always a good source of humor. Yours seem just sort of drab.

    On the same token, I feel for you in the visceral way people have been commenting and I think you're getting unnecessary hate and harrassment. This even goes beyond the crap Rusty dealt with I think in part because you're a woman. There's always a certain level of misogyny on the net and that's just simply the truth.

    I agree with the idea that this blog has declined but find it disgusting that people need to resort to these really childish attacks on you. I think if you really want to make a better blog, don't worry about pleasing people or making posts without real substance. Ignore the "haters." Check back at Rusty's old posts and get a feel for what it's like to channel all that anger and resentment at things you feel are unjustified or just simply retarded. Those are what made really great posts.

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  18. LIZ, DON'T LISTEN TO THE HATERS, YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB! HEY, I'VE BEEN MEANING TO ASK, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS CRAZY WEATHER WE'VE BEEN HAVING?

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  19. well, congrats on alienating almost everyone who used to read this blog. I'm not going to rail against your writing because, well, it's not terrible. It's just that you're turning out not to be the right person to take the reigns.

    Incidentally, deleting comments is not going to help your cause. In fact, you're more likely to get harassed if you keep deleting comments.

    I'm gonna go read Rusty's lifetime reviews. Think about it.

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  20. DIANEDOUGLASS!

    can you please simmer down with the caps lock?

    seriously.

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  21. This would have been a much more interesting story if it somehow included a Vince Weigung Li reference, but it didn't so it pretty much sucks like the rest of the stuff you put on here.

    Way to miss an easy Asian cannibal joke. Jesus Christ. How could you write about a bus and not mention that. Seriously.

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  22. There is a big scandal brewing with the summer jobs program...this is the kind of issue that's perfect for this blog, yet there's silence. Isaw Hizzoner Marion Barry onthe local news this morning, and he actually made sense! What's this city (and this blog)coming to?!?

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  23. "Liz, I think Patrick is challenging your journalistic integrity."

    Patrick is a troll. Trolls challenge everything. It makes them feel like they matter. The whole point of trolldom is to force someone else to justify themselves. If you think about it, it's totally stupid. "You owe me an explanation for what you wrote in your BLOG!" Yeah. I'll get right on that.

    " I have been reading and commenting on this blog for the better part of 5 years, so please, get a new line...its getting stale, much like this blog."

    You really think longevity means I owe you something? (and I read the "comments" you left for Rusty, too, they weren't nice) If it's stale, leave. What do you think I'm going to do? Be all, "Oh no! he called me STALE! I should DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW TO MAKE THIS COMPLAINER HAPPY?"

    Yeah. I'll get right on that.

    As for the "eff-you" attempt to troll other commenters in the comments. Sheesh. It's gone. And in the future it will be removed more quickly.

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  24. Don't listen to the black guy; he's too sensitive. The story was very "D.C.," in my opinion, as funny as it was sad.

    Reminds me of the time my ex-girlfriend criticized me for backing out of a fight w/ a midget in Adams Morgan. So he called me a faggot? I let it go.

    Also, he was a black midge.

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  25. m@.....SERIOUSLY

    Could you be more racist.

    Liz, I am 100% serious, please remove that comment. What does race have to do with anything.

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  26. I think he was talking about the commenter whose name was actually "Black." But your'e right, there's no need to name the other guy's race.

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  27. George,

    Race was an integral part of that story. Why don't you remove yourself from the equation?

    I was just trying to add some color to the story. The fact that that midget was African American made the story even more poignant. I mean, it's one thing to get into a fight with a Little Person... but to add race to that equation just made it even more ridiculous.

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