Thursday, January 10, 2008

Free etiquette lessons

Okay, now that I know some rules of etiquette, I can now begin judging locals by their own standards. Actually, this thought would not have occurred to me, except that, moments after writing yesterday's post, I rode the bus with the worst example of Swiss behavior possible. Now it seems only natural.

So, little punk kid from the bus, here are some tips:

1. Do not chew pear with your mouth open, if you have to eat a pear on the bus at all. In many cultures, including your own, this is rude.
2. Do not allow your dog to take up a seat. That way, you won't be tempted to feed him your fruit and a human can sit. Your girlfriend will have to save the "drinking from a juicebox" training for your dog until another time.
3. Do not rile up the town crazy if he is sitting next to anyone, but especially if he is sitting next to me.
4. When you finish your pear, please try to wait until the bus stops to throw it out the bus door. Then you won't have to pry the bus doors open. That is alarming to other passengers and is probably not good for the bus.
5. Even better, wait to dispose of your pear until you are off the bus and put it into a trash receptacle conveniently located a few steps away. That way, you won't also be littering to boot (see yesterday's post if you're confused about that).
6. "What are you looking at?" is impolite.  But, to answer the question, the man in front of you was observing your violent attempts to open the doors and wondering why you couldn't wait two seconds until the next stop.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you ever stop to consider that the pear was really heavy and my wrist was getting tired? Maybe I couldn't even hold it up anymore.

Anonymous said...

Where are you going on the bus? I thought Jim locked you up when he left each morning.