Fascinating Ask Metafilter question: How to deal with adult bus bullies

By Mark Frauenfelder at 5:06 pm Friday, Feb 17

On February 7, "cior" asked the hive mind at Ask MetaFilter to help her with a problem she faced everyday on her bus ride to work. Abridged excerpt:

Each morning at 6:54am I catch an hour-long bus from my house to my office. On this bus are two women (40-50's) who seemingly work all night in some sort of nursing capacity.

One of them, the one who sits across the aisle from me likes to open her window. Mind you, this morning it was 25F outside. From where she sits, she gets a light dusting of fresh air. From where I sit, it's an artic blast that a) farks up the newspaper I'm reading, b) throws my hair into my face and c) freezes my nose off.

Last week, as they did the little dinger thing that signals for a stop I got up and went across the aisle to close the window after they were out of their seats and towards the front of the bus. This act was met with a very loud and demeaning call-out peppered with phrases like:

* Who does she think she is?
* Look at Little Miss Thing
* Uhn-uh, she's closing the window again.

It's truly endless, and so far I haven't acknowledged any of it.

Tons of people have given her suggestions so far, and there are a lot of fascinating answers. I think a lot of us (people who read MetaFilter and Boing Boing and the like) had their share of bullying as kids and so now it's payback time. It's interesting how many answers involve wearing an iPod to drown out their voices. My two favorites: "Superglue the window shut after they've gotten off the bus," and "The next time they say anything while you are closing the window, simply smile sincerely, wave, and (if they can hear you) say 'See you tomorrow! Have a good one!' sincerely"
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