The Privileges of Womanhood

Age had its privileges, and pretending to be deaf was one of them. Unfortunately for Amelia, she was only 20. The only thing she had resembling wrinkles were the dark bags under her eyes. And the man on the bus in front of her was still glaring.

“Eh?” she tried again.

“I know you can hear me! I saw you talk to the bus driver!” The man finished off his sentence with a triumphant flourish of his red nose, up and down and up again. Amelia decided one thing then and there: she would never ride the campus bus again. Even if she was late for class. She’d just get a bike, go green and healthy. It was not worth having to deal with these drunk, patronizing, moronic fraternity assholes who seemingly grew and spawned with the mold under the seat. There was always one of them on the bus! Always! She decided to try another tactic.

"No habla inglés.”

She didn’t think it would work given the fact that she practically glowed in the dark. Hell, she was so pale that moths bounced off of her all summer, but he was drunk enough that it seemed worth a shot. The frat idiot stared at her with increasing perplexity before his face started twisting up in disgust.

Oh fuck, she thought, fuck fuck fuck. She looked around the bus, but everybody seemed to be religiously looking at phones or textbooks, or just plain asleep. She was on her own. The frats thick lips drew further back, and Amelia prepared to pull the pepper spray out of her purse. She’d grabbed it about 10 seconds after boy stumbled over to her, just to be safe, and it looked like she might have to use it after all.

“Achoooooo!” The puffy faced nitwit sneezed a mighty sneeze, spraying globs of spit and pale snot all down the front of her overalls. The wispy excuse for a mustache that hung like a rotting blond possum from the boys upper lip flapped like a shutter in a tornado, and Amelia would later swear to God and Jesus and her best friend and her worst friend and her mom and her grandmother that at least a dozen vomit-yellow hairs drifted to the floor, dislodged by the destructive force of the sneeze.

Amelia jumped back, arms held out like a scarecrow, shaking like a dog. “What the fuck man?! What the fuck is wrong with you! You- you- you pissant little motherfucker! You lumpy little shit, you- She stopped to take a few fast breaths, then continued. “You sorry excuse for a functioning human, toxic and smelly and, you know what? If I had a time machine, I'd go back and give your parents a condom! No no, what am I thinking, you obviously came from a broken condom. I’d go into debt, just to pay for your father to have a vasectomy and for your mother to have her tubes tied! No, I’d make your father move to Spain and your mother to Alaska! I’d never let them meet!”

Frat boy looked up at her, confusion writ on his sweaty face. “Who are you again?”

Amelia pepper sprayed him.