Before I even entered the bus, I could see that a woman was wearing some really shiny foil on over her hair. She was sitting on the front bench seat, which is where blind passengers often sit (this information is important for the story). When I entered the bus, I noticed that this foil was not only covering her hair, it was long and hanging like a cape off the back of her head. She was sitting so that it draped over the seat next to her.
It looked like it was the same sort of foil that Sterile Foil Baby Buntings are made out of.
Side story: Bryan works at a hospital. A little over a year ago he saw an ad for the above product. It was just a picture of the baby wrapped in foil and it said in large letters, “STERILE FOIL BABY.” He made about 30 copies of the page and brought it home. I gave copies to some of my friends and hung one in my then-office. I hope it’s still there because, for me, when teaching got tough, all I had to do was look to the Sterile Foil Baby to remind me that there are things to laugh about. Like Sterile Foil Baby ads.
Back to the current story:
She was holding a mirror in front of her face and applying mascara in a way that tugged up her eyelids and made the white of her eyeballs freakishly visible. She was just applying and reapplying this stuff, and I was suddenly totally grossed out by the idea of eyeballs and the fact that everyone has such disgusting things in the front of their faces.
A few stops later, a blind man entered the bus. She didn’t move. She just kept applying her mascara with her little mascara-caked wand. The people around her moved the shiny foil head cape from the seat beside her and guided the blind man to sit down. So he was sitting there, rubbing all against her foil—which, by the way, wasn’t quiet. She put away her make up and adjusted her foil.
She got off a few stops later. I watched her walk down the sidewalk. Her shiny foil head cape fluttered behind her.
Once the bus got going again, the blind man turned toward the guy sitting next to him and asked, “What was all that foil stuff?”
Half the bus broke out into a gradual laugh, and a few people tried to explain what had been going on. I’m not sure what exactly people said to him, but I did hear “space blanket.”
