Dear Snot-Girl,

I was on the train yesterday when I noticed you. There wasn't anything particularly odd about you when I first noticed you. Until I realized what exactly you were doing.

Because, honestly, it's hard not to notice a girl talking on her cell phone with a finger sticking straight up her nose.

I averted my eyes at first, looking out the window, until out of the corner of my eye, I saw what you were doing once your finger left your nose. You continued talking on the phone, wiped your finger on the empty seat next to you, glanced down at your finger and then back in it went into your nose.

Which is disgusting. What if someone had done the same thing to the seat you were sitting in? Are you trying to spread germs? (Not that germs really need any help!) But it is just bad practice to pick your nose in public and then wipe it onto a surface that other people will touch. Have you heard of tissues? Or perhaps your own clothes that you will be wearing that are already exposed to all the pathogens that could be in your own mucous? Did you consider that?

Because, in case you haven't known, some people with comprised immune systems or chronic immune disorders are incredibly bad with common ailments that your immune system (or mine) could knock out in under a day. Some people with comprised immune systems can die from really common things, like a seasonal flu (or H1N1) or the common cold.

And, considering the statistics textbook and the school planner you were carrying, I'm guessing you were at least in 2nd year university.

Which means that you should know better. A lot better.

Sincerely,
Girl with better social skills

Dear "Yoga" Girl,

You got onto the bus today with your friend. You were carrying your backpack and a rolled up yoga mat and your friend commented that she didn't realize that you did yoga now. Imagine my surprise when I heard you speaking from the seat in front of me.

Girl: Oh, I don't actually do yoga.
Friend: Then why do you have a mat?
G: Because a lot more guys hit on me when I've got it.
F: *surprised* Seriously? How did you find that out?
G: Well you know X? She carries one and she always has hot guys talking to her.
F: But she actually does yoga!
G: Well, how will anyone ever know that I don't?
F: Good point!

Really? You carry around an object, albeit a light and fairly compacted object, just to attract the attentions of guys? What happens if one of them happens to do yoga as well and asks you where you do it? What happens if one of them wants to know where you go to do yoga so they can sign up for a class as well? What happens if someone asks you for recommendations for places to buy yoga mats or asks you which is the best instructor you've had so far?

Do you not think things through when you decide on a really weird scheme?

Perhaps I'm just odd, but I really don't see the point of making up such a lie (with props, no less!) in order to get guys to like you. If they decide to hit on you just because of your yoga mat, are they just as likely to hit on you if you didn't have it with you? Perhaps they would have spoken to you anyways, regardless of that rolled up mat that you've got with you. Perhaps they would have wanted to talk to you and find something out about you that is true.

What will happen if one of these guys who will hit on you (allegedly) because you have a yoga mat with you decides to ask you out on a date? What happens if this relationship becomes remotely casually-serious? Are you going to tell them that you've just decided to stop going to yoga or are you going to fess up to this stupid lie that you've concocted?

Because really, I want to know how you think this will play out.

Sincerely,
Girl without a yoga mat

Dear Cheap Idiot,

So I was sitting near the back of the bus today, minding my own business when you and your friends started to talk. At first, the conversation (which was loud, by the way - I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I bet the bus driver could have heard your annoying giggling and chatter) was boring. Talks of grad dinner/dance, dresses, shoes. It's September, kids, you have a lot of time. Then you moved onto your newest hobby.

Or rather, what your sister's friend's boyfriend (I think I got that right?) had for a new hobby: screenprinting. And you mentioned how he'd made your sister the "coolest shirt in the world" and how he had all this fancy equipment and inks and such. And.... "He'll totally make you guys shirts for like a buck. I'll give you guys his number, just call him up."

Really? Your sister receives a gift and you seem to feel as if it's a green light to pimp him out for $1 per shirt? Go do yourself a favour and look up how much screenprinting equipment runs for, how much the inks and catalyst and such cost, retail price. Please, go see that and then recant what you said and apologize to your sister's friend's boyfriend for being an idiot of epic proportions.

Also, please don't hatch up half-brained money-making schemes on public transit. It makes you and your friends look absolutely moronic. Considering you were going on about how you were going to ask your boyfriend's friend if he'd make you a website for "like, a dollar an hour, probably" and how you were going to sell those 'super cheap' screenprinted shirts for "at least" $30/each.

If your sister's friend's boyfriend and your boyfriend's friend are stupid enough to actually give in to your demands, you're incredibly lucky. But, since chances are they won't be so easy to let you walk all over them in favour of monetary gain... Go get a paper route or a part time or something instead of using others.

Sincerely,
Annoyed

Dear Smelly, Space Invader ,

This morning I was on my way from school to the crafts store (I ran out of materials, yet again). I took an unfamiliar bus that, thankfully, the bus driver could tell me exactly which stop I wanted to get off on and in which direction to walk in order to get to my destination - the driver even took the time to tell me how to get to the nearest train station, how nice! But I sat down at the beginning of the bus route and you got on maybe about fifteen minutes later. Perhaps it's because you didn't feel like walking all the way to the back of the bus, or perhaps it's because there was an empty seat next to me and I'm a fairly small person so you thought you could just take up the space, and then some.

Either way, you ended up sitting next to me. You grunted hello at me before you pulled out today's paper to read. And it wasn't even one of those small freebie papers that you get at train stations (I get those for the Soduku puzzles and local news), no, it had to be one of those national papers that has sections A to E and takes up about a metre of space.

Which placed your hand neatly right in front of my face.

And do I even need to comment on your personal hygiene? Because, forgive me, it seems like it would be common sense to bathe either once in a while or at the very least go for a flea dip before going onto public transit and taking up more space that one ought to be allowed.

When I asked you to move your hand/arm from the general area in front of my face, you just rolled your eyes and muttered something about "little girls not knowing their place" and how "no one respects their elders anymore".

Well, sir, perhaps if you appeared to be elderly, I would have been a bit nicer. But really, you looked at most to be early 40s. Plus you were rude and invading my personal space.

So no, mister, I don't think I will be very 'respectful' to you.

Sincerely,
Little girl, who does know her place

Dear Advice Giver,

I encountered you on the bus. You're probably around my father's age, a bit more gray hair and a visible receding hairline. Dressed pretty simply, dress shirt paired with jeans that looked way too stiff. Now, I didn't say anything to you and you was sitting in front of me on the bus. And then you decide to turn around and start talking to me.

Y: You won't get a nice decent man to marry you if you continue to dress like a slut.
M: [I slowly pull my earbuds out at this, I thought I misheard you over Lily Allen] Excuse me?
Y: You won't get a nice decent [insert race here]* man to marry you if you continue to dress like a slut.
M: [blinks slowly] Okay, right. Umm, thanks.

Politeness: 1, Random Stranger: 0

Because my answer kinda rendered you speechless for a moment, I took that as an opportunity to go back to listening to my music.

Of course, I took a few seconds to address my outfit that was visible for the day. Runners, not slutty. Black pants, not slutty. Navy blue hoodie that was zipped up, not slutty. Red jacket to keep me warm and dry, not slutty. Hair? In pigtails. I had to text a friend and she informed me that pigtails were probably what resulted in the slut comment. After all, schoolgirls just get such a bad rap in the world, right?

However, I am not impressed with your generalization. For all you know, I could have been under the age of 16 and the biggest worry in my life is wondering if the boy who sits next to me in math class even knows that I'm alive. For all you know, I could be the next Virgin Mary and have a miracle birth. For all you know, I could cat around and be sleeping my way through the men's water polo team at my school. Luckily for me, I'm none of those things, but you don't know that. You based your decision of me on... what, exactly? The way I was keeping to myself and reading a book? The way I was keeping to myself but, oh wow, I have my hair in pigtails? Really? Do you have that little of a life that you have to randomly start talking to girls who are sitting by themselves on a bus and start giving them little life lessons?

Because what I learned from your encounter is that I really don't care about attracting the attention from the race that you're so adament that I won't attract a guy from. I really don't care at all.

Sincerely,
Girl without a care

* The race that he was very adament that I'd never attract the attention of is the same one that I'm ethnically part of.

Dear Sketch Artist,

It's not everyday that I notice someone that keeps on looking up at me while I'm reading the newspaper on the bus (the finance section, in case you were curious since you couldn't see). But when I was flipping the page from finances to the health section, I noticed that you were looking right at me before you looked back down.

You had a coiled notebook and a black pen in your hands.

I'll admit that it rather creeped me out at first. I was too tired this morning to figure out what you were doing. And after maybe about three more minutes, you stopped your cycle of looking down and looking at me and started focusing on someone else on the bus. And you flipped the page over and I caught sight of this rather good sketch of me. Done on a moving bus. In pen. However, from what I could ese, I do believe that you may have put my ponytail just a little bit too high. But that's about it.

You moved onto the next person quite easily and did a quick sketch of them. When you yawned, you let your sketch book rest on your lap and I saw this great full-page sketch of the girl who was sitting across from me. You sketched out what you could see, and the way her eyes were intently staring at her cell phone.

So while it was a bit creepy (and they do teach people that staring is considered to be rude), it's some kind of awesome that you were doing sketches that quickly and that nicely. So I'll give you props for that.

Just... Try not to stare so intently next time. It's kind of creepy.

Sincerely,
Drawn

Dear Woman with Books,

When you accidentally hit someone with your bag full of books, it is customary in this country (Canada) to apologize to said person and then, perhaps, sit down (since there were available seats on the bus). It is not, however, polite (or legal...) to look at the person who said 'ouch' when you first hit them (that person being me) and then giving them a look of disgust while you go "That didn't hurt!" and then proceed to swing your bag (full of books) back at that person, that you had already hit once, right in the ribs.

Let's have a lesson today from the Criminal Code of Canada:

(1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs.

And next time you want to hit someone with something, don't do it on a bus with witnesses and a bus driver who asks the person being hit if they want to call the police. It's not particularly very smart.

At least you had the intelligence to run. I really wouldn't have had an issue with the first hit (the unintentional one) if you had at least the manners to apologize for it. I wasn't asking for a gold engraved plaque stating your apologies, just a simple "sorry" would have done.

Sincerely,
Girl with the bruises

Dear Leash Holder,

I really don't understand the point of putting your child (your child, by the way, who was a little bit older than a toddler age, I believe) on a leash. I don't understand the point of it unless, perhaps, you were in a very busy place like an amusement park and you know your child is prone to wandering off because something shiny caught their little eyes.

See, proper child leashes I can understand (sort of, I'm still at a lost at why you would want to leash your child to begin with). Made of real fabric, probably a padded harness that fits around their shoulders and loops around their middle, a long strip of something resembling the ends of the straps on a backpack to lead from the child to you. The 'real' child leashes.

Putting your child onto a leash that was a chain with it being looped around their middle and extending to your hand? It was like you decided to take Fido's leash and use it on your child one morning and decided that it'd be perfectly okay.

I question the intelligence of people fairly often. But putting your older-than-3 (or so) daughter on a leash meant for a canine while you're walking on the sidewalk and getting onto the bus and you're holding onto her hand the entire time is kind of overkill.

What did people do before child-leashes were made available on the market? Just lose their children everywhere or were they maybe better at disciplining their children and better at keeping track of their own children? At the very least, just get something to leash your daughter that doesn't look like you stole it off of your poodle.

Sincerely,
Disgusted

Dear the Boy that Darwin would have loved,

I've been having a decent week so far. Lots of snow coupled with slow transit service. I'm back at school and there's ice everywhere and unpaved sidewalks.

And I have a very short complaint today.

If you're on a bus that's quiet at 6am and no one is saying a thing and the only thing to be heard is the bus going through slush, you really shouldn't be speaking so loudly on your cell phone to your friend about how your mom just made up a new batch of meth and how you were going to go score some E and maybe some roofies for your girlfriend after second period because some teacher wasn't ever going to realize that you never showed up for biology and the girlfriend still wasn't giving it up. You don't need to advertise your extracurricular activities to a somewhat full bus of people.

And maybe if you showed up for biology once in a while, you would know a little something about 'natural selection'. Charles Darwin would have loved you. You could have been the ultimate poster child for his theories to do with evolution and why some species die out.

Cheers,
Science Geek

P.S. Rape is rape is rape. Illegal in so many ways. Plus, if you're religious, you'll end up burning in hell. With fire. And brimstone. Or so they say. Or you'll get your just desserts when they try you as an adult for aggravated sexual assault.