The person I was sitting next to on the bus last Wednesday put on hand sanitizer across from the wrong person. “I’ve got hand sanitizer, too. Yeah, I put it on everything. People don’t wash their hands. Do you want some? I always use it. Do you speak English?”
Earnest schizophrenics are the worst. It’s not like you can talk them down like you can the drug-addled or other types of crazy. I got up and moved to the back of the bus, far away from the litany of helpful health tips and reasons why using hand sanitizer at every opportunity was a moral imperative.
No one was responding to her, but she kept evangelizing doggedly. Did you know you can recycle hand sanitizer bottles? It’s good for everything. It protects you and it protects babies. No one washes their hands. Are you sure you don’t want some? I have plenty. I always use it. Share with your neighbor.
She was getting a little louder. I had almost made it to my stop. The teenagers in the back of the bus were snickering to each other. Finally, she spoke up so the whole bus could hear:
“Everyone: give your neighbor hand sanitizer! Love your neighbor! What would Jesus do…” She paused to think for a minute. “If he had hand sanitizer?”
The bus driver had to take control: “Ma’am. Ma’am! Sit down.” One guy sitting in front of me but sideways so I could see his face, looked sad, like he had had to go through that with someone in his family. Is it callous to laugh at people like this, or is it the only thing we can do? Well, Jesus didn’t use hand sanitizer anyway.
[...] Hand sanitizer lady was at the restaurant, only it was a guy obsessed with soda. That I was drinking. Only I couldn’t escape to the back of the bus. Is is rude to ignore a retarded person who smells? With people who are a little crazy, sometimes it’s better to not acknowledge them or initiate contact, because then you’re stuck trying to fill their human interaction quotient they’re desperately low on because everyone else doesn’t know how to interact with them. The dude’s brother who worked there said “Okay, relax” quite a few times because the guy couldn’t stop talking about caffeine and how he couldn’t have any because of his medication. [...]