Acetone and Listerine

One tries to make a conscious effort to not be judgmental. This effort is essentially impossible when faced with people who make you want to punch yourself in the face, or at the very least come home and snarkily blog about them.

In my case, it was yesterday, when I got on the bus, and for 20 minutes listened to the girl behind me complaining, on the phone, both to and about the guy who had apparently put nail polish remover in her mouthwash.

Looking at it objectively, you could maybe sympathize with this woman for awhile. Then you realize that...

1) It sounds like they had some kind of escalating prank thing going on, and that the guy won, because she girl decided it wasn't funny.

2) The girl was claiming that she had to call poison control because she had ingested some of it. I know that when I use mouthwash, I don't tend to swallow it, particularly in large enough doses that, even with some acetone in there, I wouldn't be okay, but there you go.

3) Because of her outrage at point #2, she was insistant that she was calling the police and that she had hidden her nailpolish and mouthwash bottles so that the guy couldn't come back and hide them, because she was absolutely positive that there were fingerprints on them.

4) She was nearly yelling at the guy when she was talking to him, but then would switch over to her friend and would be laughing with her about his reaction. If you think a situation is funny enough to laugh about, then you don't need to involve the cops.

5) This was the kind of person who uses the same 17 words in different orders to make up every single one of their sentences. "I just don't understand" and "That's what I'm trying to say" made appearances in the dozens.

6) She was swearing, despite the fact that she was sitting next to a four-year-old. I'm not much of a prude, but it irks me when people do that.

So, my fiancee and I, immensely irritated by this girl came up with three different solutions, none of which we, regretfully, actually acted out.

1) "Accidentally" spilling nail polish remover on her shoes.

2) Sitting on the other side of her, emitting a high-pitched sound (think going "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" trying to sound like a TV station that has gone off-air, looking completely innocent.

3) Calling someone up (or just miming with our phones) the exact same conversation she was having, including the specific names she was using.

Sadly, politeness and good child-rearing won out, and we simply got off the bus, with a fun little story to tell.