Benchwarmer's Delight

When I was riding the shuttle at school today, an elderly black woman got on at one of the stops. She was well-dressed, with a cool early-60s hat, (but not the pillbox kind you're immediately imagining, but the other kind, more like a ladies' little lo-profile fedora) and two big bags of luggage. It's kind of unusual, because usually it's only college kids on the shuttle.

So I helped her with a bags a little bit, and I mean a very little bit, like to the extent that I was almost ashamed that I didn't help her more, but I had hesitated because most people don't like strangers all up in their crap.

So I help her and she starts talking to me about how it's so nice to see chivalry because she's from Tennessee ("There, a man is a MAN."), so I said something about how some women don't like it when men do chivalrous stuff because they find it demeaning and patronizing, so she starts talking about how men are not only physically stronger than women, but that men are also intellectually superior to women, and less prone to things like vanity.

Right? So of course I had to totally talk to her for the entire shuttle trip, during which time nobody else on the (jam packed) shuttle made a peep. That's the only reason this is worth mentioning at all, because there was so much pressure on me to entertain not only this woman, but all 50 people on the shuttle for the whole ride.

I did not ask to be put in this position. I shoulda been like all, "Lady, look: This requires more effort than I'm willing to expend right now, ok, so would you mind just selecting somebody else for this?"