THE GOLDEN RULE, OR TRUE AMERICA ON THE BUS

I am one of the few people in Los Angeles who take public transportation to work. I am a proud patron of what is called the Commuter Express system, and my bus is a nice one with padded seats, a/c and friendly faces; we all know each other, we all work in the same area downtown.

I love the bus. For starters, it saves me money (gas, parking and the like), time (carpool lane) and the headache of driving in rush hour traffic; and it allows me to believe, as I am riding with my fellow commuters, that LA is a real city after all... But I also cannot deny that one of the greatest benefits of riding the bus to work is that I get to sleep on the way in and on the way out.

And when I say sleep, I mean deep sleep. It is heaven: 50 extra minutes in the morning, and 50 more in the evening. What else can a sleep-deprived, night bird like me ask for? Obviously, I am not the only one in the bus who takes advantage of the ride time to doze off. That being said, you hardly see any of my fellow commuters on the phone, and it makes perfect sense - after all, it is not the most comfortable place to engage in phone conversations. Call it our golden rule, if you will.

Recently, however, my rides have been disturbed by this youngling who gets on a little after me. It just so happens that I usually sit after the rear door, by the window, and he likes to sit right by me. And he talks with his girlfriend on the phone every morning, and his cell phone is loud and I can hear her breathe, let alone talk.

For as I long as I could (over a month already), I sat still and pretended it wasn't bothering me that much. But after a particularly long night, I just had it: "Do you mind?", I said to him this morning as he was flipping his cell phone open. He was in shock. Literally. Red as a beet, and I started worrying that he had swallowed his phone by mistake.

He was able then to say that this was a public place blah blah. I replied: "Exactly my point. You should remember that this is not your private car or office or whatever. Look around - do you see anyone else on the phone? You're always the only one. The least you could do is lower the volume, since by now I feel like I am intimate with you and your girlfriend. And I am not very fond of ménages a trois." And I went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, he dropped the bomb: "And you, where are you from?" Little did he know... Suddenly completely awake, I sat very straight and asked him what exactly he meant by that remark. "Oh I detect an accent." So? I told him I failed to see how my accent would have anything to do with the fact that his cell phone usage was beyond the norms of polite consideration for others. His answer: "Oh I wonder, because a true American would not make an issue out of me talking to my girl every morning on the bus."

By then, I was irate. There is no point in relaying here all that I told him. Suffice it to say that very slowly and quietly (after all, others were trying to sleep) I told him that the bus was full of people who were not Americans, but that also that the other "true" Americans on the bus were not behaving the way he did. I also told him that if he wanted to live in "true" America, he should join his girlfriend back home in Appalachia because here in Los Angeles he was clearly in the minority.

And last but not least, I told him that was enough. Then I turned to the window to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the bus got to my stop.