Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Enfoiré! (Paris III)

Two women and three children board the bus I am riding. One of the little girl is crying and her mother (?) rapidly lost patience. She is shouting to the girl and all the passengers are looking at her. The other woman steps in and asks " You want to come with me, don't you?" She takes the little girl to the back of the bus and proceeds to tell her stories about driving, punctuated by the sentence " You are the only one driving the bus. Where do you want to go?"
The little girl calms down and the woman looks around, to the other woman. She is clearly enjoying her success and has an infinitely contented air.
As I am wondering about the reaction of the mother, the bus driver honks to a parked car. The car's door is opened and the bus driver wants to squeeze by. Nothing really except that the car driver does not like to be honked at like this and proceeds to insult the bus driver. I note with pleasure that I know most of the popular insults; not completely an American yet.
The bus driver stops suddenly. He opens the front door and gets out of his seat. He is hanging out from the bus and shouting back to the man. "Do you have a problem? Why are you insulting me like this?" The man is speaking French with a strong foreign accent and insults are clearly the only French he knows quite well. He can't complete a sentence and keeps piling up insults to make up for the lack of conversation skills.
After a while the bus driver has had enough. He shouts " Wait for me, asshole. I'll drive the bus to the station and I come back to beat you up". ("Attends moi connard. Je pose le bus et je viens te casser la gueule"). I think it is an idle treat until I realize that the last station is just around the corner. We arrive there and he hurries out the two women with their kids, closes the bus' doors and starts walking toward the place of the altercation.
I won't be too surprised if the next bus is a bit late....

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