You call that a letter opener?

I couldn't take the express bus to my house last night, because of teaching obligations that kept me busy at the school until about 6 pm.

So, I got on the number 16 bus, took it downtown and got off at the library. That went off without a hitch, the city was pretty in the rain, and I somewhat enjoy seeing a different bus crowd. Getting off the bus in front of the downtown Minneapolis library I crossed the street to wait for a number 6 bus, a bus that goes south from Downtown into Uptown and Southtown. As I live in Uptown, I wouldn't have terribly far to go on the bus.

Anyhow, the bus eventually came, and I sat near the back in one of the kind of gallery seats facing out the windows.

I sat there, reading the paper and hardly taking notice of my surroundings, until an odd sort of fellow sat down, with a large rounded face, piercing blue eyes, straw colored hair and skin that looked like sparsely hair sandpaper. He was dressed like some kind of dark Jedi, with a satiny black shirt and jacket. Along with plain black slacks and some kind of cloth belt.

He seemed extremely confused about where the bus was going, and was asking frantically if it would go to southtown. He asked apologetically and angrily at the same time, suggesting that he can't read the map that the bus company supplies. He unfurled the map and pointed at it, making it out like it was written in Sumerian. Of course it wasn't, and eventually people around me helped this confused Sith.

So, I didn't pay him any heed for the next 15 minutes or so, until azround the point that I got to 27th street, when I looked up to look at the streets. He was sitting there with a slightly crazed look and a pile of what looked like junk mail lying on his lap, his satchel bag sitting next to him. What was more disturbing to me was the small tactical folding knife he was holding in his right hand. He was using it as some kind of a crude and intimidating letter opener, taking the deady 3 inch blade of carbon steel to open various credit card offers, his bank statement and other random mail.

He showed no sign of guilt or awareness of the fact that he was actually endagering everyone around him by first having a deadly weapon open on the bus. Second, by having the knife open, using it casually on the bus, he endagered us because of the potential for accidents that goes up when inside a moving vehicle. It's no doubt that motion gets transferred, which is why it's not safe to walk around while a bus is in motion.

Imagine this man losing grip of that deadly blade on a sharp turn. The light and deadly little blade would fly in whatever direction centrifigul force would take it, perhaps into a waiting neck, eye or baby.

song of the day: "Here Come The Warm Jets"-Eno