I was visiting my friend Phil and his fiancé, so I didn't have to labor too much about finding the fastest and easiest ways to get to places. I needed to take a transfer trains at one point and then hop on a bus, but I was assured it wouldn't be too difficult. I wasn't so worried about the complexity of the transfers as I was about my ability to zone out while listening to music on a bus or a train.
The train ride was a breeze. I just listened to music and stared out the window as we whizzed by Downtown Chicago and the bus ride was pleasant enough. I didn't have as much time between spots to get lost in my surroundings as I did on the train, so I was much more aware of the people around me than when I was on the train. There was an old lady seated across from me. I didn't talk to her, but she seemed nice enough. At one point of my bus ride, a large wo(man) sat down next to me. The old lady shot me a smirk and I quickly realized that this wasn't a woman, but a man dressed as a woman. They had gone the whole nine yards wearing a dress with a wig and a lot of make up. Sure, I've seen transvestites before, but to sit next to one was a brand new experience to me, and like I mentioned before, this transvestite was particularly large, probably at least 6'4.
I'll admit that I wanted to ask them a bunch of questions, but I chose not to because I would probably just come off as ignorant and judgmental. I was simply curious about their story, but understood that the general public's reaction to their lifestyle might make them slightly agitated when being asked about it. I think, because they were particularly tall, that they piqued my curiosity more so than if they were a transvestite of a normal height. I just assumed it was probably more difficult of a transition for them and would have loved to hear their story, but it ended up they weren't going to be on the bus for long and they weren't very talkative so I didn't even bother to start a conversation.
We got to my stop, I got off the bus and ended up at my destination, Hot Doug's, which had a 45 minute wait in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. I saw down with my meal and just enjoyed the amazing food in front of me, my mind consumed with only the food I was about to consume. Sitting next to the transvestite was a distant memory and I had almost forgotten about it until my friend brought it up later that night.
Meanwhile, back in California, Lancaster to be exact, someone was committing identity theft with my credit card. I didn't lose my credit card, so it somehow someone got my information and they managed to spend $304 at a Jamba Juice with it. A couple of days later they spent $300 at a Panda Express in Palmdale, CA. I've obviously reported these charges to my credit card company as fraudulent and they've been taken care of since.
I wasn't so worried about the fact that someone had been using my credit card as I was curious about what the people at my credit card company thought about me. The Jamba Juice charge actually appeared on my statement and the Panda Express purchase was a pending charge. That means, the Jamba Juice charge wasn't suspicious enough for them to see something shady was going on. It was the Panda Express purchase that finally set off the red flags.
I wonder if the person helping me with the dispute or if anyone at the company saw the charge and wondered what I looked like and what I would do with $304 of Jamba Juice and $300 of Panda Express, like if I was like that Subway Jared guy and was trying to lose weight by only eating food from these two food chains. Perhaps they thought of me as an incredibly confused man who wanted to make up for the nutrients I wasn't getting in my orange chicken with nutrients from a fruit smoothie, I don't know. Perhaps they had all these questions they wanted to ask me, but didn't want to ask them out of being polite, and maybe that's why the transvestite sat next to me on the bus. There were surely other open seats on the bus, but maybe the transvestite saw something in me, that I didn't seen in myself, that people were leering and jeering at me and that I could be empathetic to their pain.
I'll admit that I wanted to ask them a bunch of questions, but I chose not to because I would probably just come off as ignorant and judgmental. I was simply curious about their story, but understood that the general public's reaction to their lifestyle might make them slightly agitated when being asked about it. I think, because they were particularly tall, that they piqued my curiosity more so than if they were a transvestite of a normal height. I just assumed it was probably more difficult of a transition for them and would have loved to hear their story, but it ended up they weren't going to be on the bus for long and they weren't very talkative so I didn't even bother to start a conversation.
We got to my stop, I got off the bus and ended up at my destination, Hot Doug's, which had a 45 minute wait in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. I saw down with my meal and just enjoyed the amazing food in front of me, my mind consumed with only the food I was about to consume. Sitting next to the transvestite was a distant memory and I had almost forgotten about it until my friend brought it up later that night.
Meanwhile, back in California, Lancaster to be exact, someone was committing identity theft with my credit card. I didn't lose my credit card, so it somehow someone got my information and they managed to spend $304 at a Jamba Juice with it. A couple of days later they spent $300 at a Panda Express in Palmdale, CA. I've obviously reported these charges to my credit card company as fraudulent and they've been taken care of since.
I wasn't so worried about the fact that someone had been using my credit card as I was curious about what the people at my credit card company thought about me. The Jamba Juice charge actually appeared on my statement and the Panda Express purchase was a pending charge. That means, the Jamba Juice charge wasn't suspicious enough for them to see something shady was going on. It was the Panda Express purchase that finally set off the red flags.
I wonder if the person helping me with the dispute or if anyone at the company saw the charge and wondered what I looked like and what I would do with $304 of Jamba Juice and $300 of Panda Express, like if I was like that Subway Jared guy and was trying to lose weight by only eating food from these two food chains. Perhaps they thought of me as an incredibly confused man who wanted to make up for the nutrients I wasn't getting in my orange chicken with nutrients from a fruit smoothie, I don't know. Perhaps they had all these questions they wanted to ask me, but didn't want to ask them out of being polite, and maybe that's why the transvestite sat next to me on the bus. There were surely other open seats on the bus, but maybe the transvestite saw something in me, that I didn't seen in myself, that people were leering and jeering at me and that I could be empathetic to their pain.
