The toys on the bus goes round, round, round…

It was an average day on a Portland bus, or so I thought. But as I boarded the 4 headed downtown, I found that it was hardly an average day. I took my seat towards the front of the bus, and noticed my fellow passengers all seemed to have a wide range of facial expressions. I saw disgust, I saw delight, I saw disturbance, dumbfoundedness, and in one passenger’s eyes, I even saw a bit of desire. It was quite the array of emotions. Despite the smorgasbord of emotions, not one of them seemed to have a look of disinterest. For on the floor, rolling all over the bus, was a sex toy.

It was a little dirty….it’s hard to say if the dirt was there from the, ahem, loving it received by it’s orphaned owner, or if the dust was just from the bus itself. It was silicon- nothing fancy by any means. Not that I’m an expert on sex toys, but I’ve seen enough on the internet to know this didn’t have any bells or whistles – granted, I never saw it up close, so I could be wrong. As far as size and, uhhh, girth, it was rather short for a sex toy and probably about average size, so average size by most standards. Just a flesh colored, no frills prosthetic penis as far as I could tell.

The bus went along its route, the toy raced from place to place. Sometimes the toy landed in front, sometimes it landed in back, sometimes it rolled near our feet. Passengers would quickly lift their legs as the toy raced towards their toes – no one wanted to touch it. And can you blame us? I mean, where has that toy been? What has it seen? Who has it…well, you know! We just didn’t know. I mean a normal, healthy person is gross enough – but we had no idea if it’s orphaned owner was healthy. For all we knew, some horrible disease could be lurking on it’s silicon body. We just didn’t know.

Maybe ten minutes into my ride, an elderly woman who seemed to speak some type of Slavic language got on the bus. She dressed as many elderly women dress – heavy polyester, below the knee skirt. stockings, and modest black shoes with a short heel. She sat at the front of the bus, in priority seating, and did not notice the sex toy rolling around the floor. The toy, however, seemed to notice her. As the bus rolled out of the stop and onto the road once more, the toy rolled from its previous position directly to her feet….and rested at her heels.

We didn’t know what to do…should….should we tell her? Hey lady, there’s a sex toy at your heel! Should we keep our mouth shut? I mean, it was touching her heel only…I seriously doubt she would be making contact with that part of the shoe. Besides – it had stopped rolling so our terror was over. We didn’t have to worry about the toy finding its way to our feet. So….that’s pretty much what we did. We just let the toy be. Most of the passengers went back to their normal bus faces…delight, desire, despair – all replaced with the blank look of a passenger riding the bus some random afternoon. The lady seemed oblivious, and I think I only really noticed the toy at her feet because I happened to be sitting near the front, so the toy was still in plain view for me. The universe seemed to reset itself to normalcy – or rather the bus at least (when has the universe ever been normal?).

A couple stops after the elderly lady got on (the bus), a few middle school aged girls get on the bus. They plop themselves in priority seating, and, well, acted like middle school aged girls act. When they looked across the aisle, and saw a toy at the feet of an elderly lady, they giggled and pointed. The lady herself, not noticing the young girls as she was absorbed in a novel by that time. The girls, of course, presumed the toy was the lady’s. Of course they didn’t realize that the toy was there before the lady – and of course I could have said something – but what could I have said? Hey girls…that’s not that old lady’s dildo. Awkward! For all parties – the girls, the lady, and myself! I kept my silence once more. Eventually the girls exited the bus, as did I.

I have no idea what happened to the toy, or the old lady. I hope she didn’t realize she had a sex toy at her feet. That would have been, in my opinion, a wave of embarrassment, disgust, and queasiness. I know if that had happened to me, I would most likely never wear those shoes again. I wouuld burn those suckers as soon as I got home. So – yes – I hope she never discovered the secret of the toy at her shoes. And I hope whoever finally dealt with the toy, most likely an employee of Trimet, used rubber gloves.