Might feel good to you

I was once on a DC bus with a really cranky bus driver. It was raining, and there were too many people on the bus.

He kindly let a group of us on even though the bus was already packed. I think maybe he just felt sorry for us, standing like a pack of drowned rats in the deluge.

So some of the people were standing in front of that white line by the driver that you're not supposed to stand in front of. But there was nowhere else to be. Me, I was practically vaulted into his lap every time the bus turned.

He was irritated with all of us. But there wasn't anything to be done except let people off at the next stop and not let new people on. People kept pushing and shoving. And cramming people towards the front. Where the driver was.

You know how gross public transportation is when it's raining. Even if it's cold outside, you all get stuck together and you start to sweat. And so, mashed up against the hoi polloi, you just stand there, suffocating in the disgusting crush of steaming, soggy, dark winter garments.

Someone's umbrella invariably drips on your foot. Or gets shoved against some part of you. And me, I am not so tall. And so likelihood is high that I will wind up with my nose in someone's armpit.

The windows fog up. Everything is hot and humid and annoying. You can barely move and all the air you breathe has either been exhaled by someone else or is steaming off their coats.

It's like getting knitted into a wet wool forest. It's hard to squeeze your way out. It's easy to become a hater.

And so, at the next stop, before he opened the doors, the bus driver bellowed, "And all of y'all who like to get out the front doors? Why don't you try exiting through the back door for a change? Might feel good to you."

I giggled. Like the crazy lady on the bus. Might feel good to you! Hee hee!

And I think this, sometimes. When I'm suggesting something. Or silently suggesting that someone do something fairly unlikely.

It is a line I would love to use. Like, for example, on this one woman who is a perpetual and utter pill.

I'd love to say, "Why don't you try saying something positive in a meeting today? Just this once, for a change? Might feel good to you."