UPDATE BELOW
So I take the bus to work every day, and I've come to recognize the four or five drivers who man the route during the week. There's the tiny Armenian lady who has some kind of rhythm-related mental disorder, because she both accelerates and brakes in these tiny, rhythmic tap-tap-taps. There's the overweight black guy who thrusts out his hand like he's warding off vampires if you attempt to board before someone gets off. And then there's the completely generic looking 75 year old man who calls out every stop in his best train conductor voice. It's this man that I now turn to, because today he did something that, for lack of a better phrase, gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
For some reason that I can't figure out most people interpret proximity and repetition as a license to talk to me. This guy has started making inane comments to me as I get on and off the bus every day. "Did you order this heat?" he'll say, waving his hand vaguely at the outside world as I swipe my bus pass. "Yes, and I got them to throw in a tornado and three lightning bolts. Where do you live again?" I fail to say as I mumble something incoherent and walk to my seat. "Hey, didn't see you last Thursday!" he'll remark. "Yes," I again fail to say, not shooting him an off-kilter grin, "I was busy burying hookers in shallow graves."
Anyway. Today, he apparently upgraded me in his mind from Acquaintance to Close Personal Friend, because today as I was getting off the bus, he said - and I quote - "One of these days, I'm going to give you a surprise."
This is one of the creepier things an old man can say to you, I would argue. I must have stood there without moving or saying anything for a good four seconds, because he then apparently felt the need to add, "A good one." After a few more seconds of frozen silence, I said, quote, "'kay," and then got the fuck out of there.
So, here I sit, half-thinking that this guy is going to show up at my apartment with a chainsaw and a Buffalo Bill suit. I mean, the bus stop is right across from where I live.
UPDATE:
I found out what the surprise was. In a twist worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, it turned out that what he wanted to give me was not a drink from his roofie-laced water bottle, but a $15 gift card to a local smoothie cafe. Seriously. A guy whose primary interaction with me consisted of watching me scan my bus pass and making banal comments about the weather gave me a $15 gift card. Why, you ask? Well, fuck you for thinking there needed to be a reason. If you don't think that I'm the kind of smooth-talking, charming, engaging, instantly likable person that you immediately want to shower with gifts, then you're a bad friend and you can go hang yourself.
No but seriously, I'll tell you the actual reason.
After profusely thanking him because I am a human being and not a robot, I asked him, "Why are you giving this to me?" Here's what he told me: about a month before this, he'd stopped me one day and made me pour out my cup of ice. For the past few weeks I'd been bringing a cup of ice to the bus stop because summer afternoons in Austin never dip below 100 degrees. I'd been taking ice onto the bus for weeks, but one day the driver stopped me and told me to pour it out. The rules had changed. No liquids on the bus. I helpfully and not at all sarcastically pointed out that ice was not a liquid. He thought about it for a second, and, unable to come up with a counter-argument, said, "It's in a cup." Further arguments on my part proved useless, as I had to admit that, yes, the ice was in a cup.
A month later, he gives me a $15 gift card and tells me that he felt sorry about having to enforce what he saw as an arbitrary and stupid rule. Ah, sweet victory. Still, $15 seemed a little much for a trival inconvenience. Putting myself in the bus driver's shoes, I probably would have felt $5 bad, not $15 bad. So I thought about it. Maybe it wasn't just that he felt bad for me, maybe it was that he felt a little bit of guilt.
That's when I realized what I'd been doing for a month. Every day I would still bring out a cup of ice to the bus stop. When I'd see the bus coming, I'd stand up. What was it that made the driver feel guilty? Not the stupid rule. Not the fact that he inconvenienced me. No, it was the expression on my face as, every day for a month, the bus would pull up to the bus stop, I would stand up, turn to the left, hold the cup out from my body, look at the bus driver through the windshield, and slowly, ever-so-slowly, turn the cup upside down and pour out my ice all over the ground.
