UPDATE: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

This is the first sham/share for April. March's results are here.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

I rode the bus in high school. To answer the question that just popped into your mind it was, surprisingly enough, a regular sized one. Our bus driver kept order with two tools. The first was the threat that she would kick you off of the bus. She didn't mean that she would go to the office and have them remove you from her transportation obligations. She meant that she would stop the bus wherever the hell it was and kick your sorry ass out of her vehicle. We believed her.

The second way she kept order (and with the efficiency of method one this was pretty much all she needed for a backup) was to have minor violators take the front seat for a few days to a week (depending on the severity of the offense). This was known as the bitch seat and came complete with much riling from busmates and excessive smacks to the head from people leaving the bus.

I was subject to the bitch seat exactly once in my 3 years of being carted about by this woman. The offense was not intentional but she neither believed me nor cared and it earned me a full week of head smacks and verbal finger pokes at my expense. The incident occured while the bus was still parked at school waiting for all of the students to board for the ride home. A friend of mine was showing off a box of matches (yeah, I know - what the hell is that about?) and giving some out to people. I took one and asked what good it was going to do without the box to strike it against. He said you didn't need a box because they were blue-tip matches and you could strike them against just about anything. Hell, you could even strike them against your zipper. "No way" I said. "Way" he said. So I struck it against my zipper to prove the lie and gasped in astonishment when the sucker ignited. As the sulphur took to flame I freaked and tried to extinguish it but in my panic I didn't think of anything intelligent like flinging it out of the window or putting it on the floor and stomping on it. I did the finger pinch manuver (the one you use to extinquish candles). If anybody has ever tried this on a match that is in the process of lighting you will know that the sulphur is way more dedicated to catching fire than your mere flesh is to extinguish it. The result was two burned fingertips and a horrendous stench of burning sulphur. Everybody around me started at me in abject stupefication. The bus driver chose that particular moment to board the bus for the ride home, saw everybody staring at me and smelled burning chemicals. She looked at me. I looked at her. She pointed to the bitch seat. When I got up to the front she didn't even turn to look at me. She just started to drive off and said "One week. Idiot."

What she lacked in nurturing instincts she made up for with painful honesty.

Yikes, it's been a while. Sorry about that. Anyway...

This was a true story. I had done extensive playing with fire before then but my parents were wise enough to always keep blue-tip matches out of my knowledge base.

mitzi, Simon, Tiffani and Wendell weren't fooled. That means that 60% of you think I'm less foolish than I really am. I can live with that!

Posted by: Jim at 10:30 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 633 words, total size 4 kb.

1 I gotta go sham here. If you don't know what a blue tip match is by high school, you'd be on the short bus. Just kidding, but sham all the way.

Posted by: tommy at April 02, 2004 02:10 PM (v0EoW)

2 Sham. I have no doubt that you rode the bitch seat - you probably even coined the name - just not for this offense.

Posted by: Clancy at April 02, 2004 02:32 PM (EGVPL)

3 share...I think you were actually THAT dumb...lol...

Posted by: mitzi at April 02, 2004 10:29 PM (GhWNp)

4 I'm voting share.

Posted by: wendell at April 03, 2004 02:48 PM (RLYS5)

5 another half truth, I think. For me it was the "way"/" no way" exchange that doesn't sound authentic. Sham.

Posted by: jimi at April 04, 2004 08:13 PM (lN8eP)

6 Share.

Posted by: Simon at April 04, 2004 09:38 PM (FUPxT)

7 That's gotta be a sham, if only because you'd have dropped it before attempting the finger pinch and then set fire to the bus ...

Posted by: Rob at April 05, 2004 07:20 AM (kXZI6)

8 Rob's the eternal optimist. He's always willing to give me the benefit of rational thought. :-)

Posted by: Jim at April 05, 2004 09:06 AM (IOwam)

9 Sham.

Posted by: Sue at April 05, 2004 01:27 PM (AaBEz)

10 Again I say share.

Posted by: Tiffani at April 05, 2004 02:41 PM (xpNFK)

11 Sham.

Posted by: MojoMark at April 05, 2004 03:43 PM (E+LQu)

12 so much for rational thought - that's it man, you're now being re-filed under total nutbar

Posted by: Rob at April 10, 2004 08:04 AM (BWDMP)

13 Aw, come on! It was only one match.

Posted by: Jim at April 10, 2004 08:06 AM (saeHM)

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