The Woman on the Bus Today

Copied and pasted from my diary this evening:

I walked to the Merrion Centre, and got a 4.

I went to the top deck and an insanely drunk woman was bloviating and complaining upstairs-- ridiculously loudly and belligerently, while ostentatiously drinking alcohol, and boasting about it. She was complaining about the unfriendly driver, ordering people to open windows, complaining about immigrants, wondering why they would want to come to Ireland, and complaining about people leaving bags on seats. Also complaining about people talking on their phones: "I wouldn't want to be sharing my thoughts with everybody, if I have a call to make I'll make it from the comfort of my home, they must be getting orgasms from this." She was quite well-spoken and mentioned she had worked for Bank of Ireland at one point. She moved up one seat at one point and so was sitting directly behind me.

Her husband was on the bus with her. He was intermittently telling her to shut up, ferociously. He even said he would punch her in the mouth at one point. She was complaining about his mother (in her eighties), whose illness had stopped them from going on holiday abroad. She was talking about a fellow who had (supposedly) an obsession with her, comparing him to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, saying she had done nothing to encourage him (her husband pointed out she hadn't deleted his number from her phone), and mocking her husband for his jealousy and his failure to protect her from this guy. Eventually he stormed off downstairs. After that she went silent for  a while.

Eventually, a Pole sat beside her. She started speaking very nicely to him (even though she had been complaining about Poles minutes before), asking him about Poland, and talking about her travels in other countries. She seemed obsessed with travel and called Ireland a "kip". She said her husband was an Elvis fanatic, that they had been to Graceland several times, that if he died of a heart attack she would sell all his Elvis memorabilia and give the money to a children's hospital. She said she was drinking because she had missed out on her holiday, and expected to recoup less than five hundred euro from a two thousand euro loss. When the Pole pointed out we were in O'Connell Street-- the conversation had started by her asking where the bus stopped in the city centre-- she said: "You're trying to get rid of me. I understand." She was suddenly very sweet and gracious and apologetic as she alighted from the bus-- she could be clearly heard from upstairs. But she was still cussing her husband.