Women and The Art of Sitting Sideways

On the odd day that I commute and ride the ubiquitous FX (coding and the inability to wake up insanely early, yeah tell me about it), I always make sure that I take the back seat.  There’s always a mad scramble for the front seat and I don’t like joining the fray.  The middle seats are ridiculous; four people have to squeeze in, in a space that only allows 3 people to sit comfortably.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Anyway this morning was no different; I waited in line and took the back seat.  Most of the time, guys are my backseat sitting companions (what can I say, guys think alike; if its not sex we’re thinking of, its the back seat, which in a way, still goes back to sex, har har). This morning however, all my companions were women, which was a bit disconcerting.  Guys, for one, would have no problem doing alternating knees. You know, the one where you insert your knees in between the two knees of the guy in front of you to maximize the cramped space and allow everyone a bit of comfort.  This becomes a problem (for obvious reasons) when you’re in the back seat with women, especially those wearing skirts since trying  to do an alternating maneuver would only result to a screeching complaint if you’re lucky or a resounding slap if you’re not.

As I expected, the skirted ladies sat sideways or slanting or however you would want to call it.  This prevents their skirts from hitching upwards, which would give the other people in the back seat a bird’s eye view of their flowery glory.  But because of their sitting position and the fact that the spare tire of the FX was in the back seat, there wasn’t enough room for everyone.  So what’s a guy to do but just sit stiffly still with his legs compressed together?  Future generation of fencesitters had to endure the suffocating pressure of my two legs bearing down on them.

Note to ladies:  There is a reason why guys sit with their legs wide open, it’s not about laziness or boorishness, it’s to ensure that the propagation of healthy species continue by allowing the future of this world to freely dangle, get my hanging drift?

But I digress.

So there I was, stiff as a board, when the woman beside me started sliding down in her slanting position, unmindful that her right knee was already poking my left calf.  At first I was just oblivious to the pressure, but when I tried to scoot over to my corner (I was in the inner side), the more she slid towards me with only my calf stopping her from sliding down to the floor!  So now all her weight was on my calf and I had to summon every ounce of restraint from shaking her awake and giving her a piece of my mind.  But since I had a really lovely morning when I woke up, I just told myself that it’s only gonna be for the next 30 minutes anyway so I might as well endure the pain and let the poor lady sleep.  Haay, the things we tell ourselves to rationalize avoiding conflict.

Thirty minutes after, with the knee still attached to my calf, it was finally time for me to get off.  So I asked the FX driver to stop, excused myself to the lady companions, and on my way out, I managed to accidentally step on the foot of the lady beside me.  I quickly apologized and before the lady could even utter a reply, I slammed the backseat door in her face.  It was a lovely morning indeed.