When the Symbols Lose Their Meaning

You know you're in trouble when the symbols lose their meaning. I've worked, since my one week vacation to Chicago in October of 2006, only taking 2 unofficial days off. I stood at the bus stop today this afternoon, feeling as though I had read a novel while brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, driving to work, answering the phone, walking to court. . . I could remember some parts of the novel and not others. What happened during those missing parts? Those missing parts are what I'll be tested on, likely, I thought. And it will be a "pop" test like a "pop" quiz.

Down the street a bus I'd never seen before, the Lutherville 8 bus, came up through the streetlight and parked at the curb in front of me. A line of people formed as though there was nothing unusual about it and I got in line myself. Someone said, "What bus is this?" and the driver said, "61" which actually is my bus. "You know you're sign's wrong?" someone asked. "You all actin' like I look different," she said as I was climbing on. I don't recall ever seeing her before but I suppose she has always driven the 61 route.

Yesterday I remembered that Tom had told me to Google "Denver Airport". I did and the things I found led me to this:

and this:

The volume is low on both of those. Looking up the person who added those videos to YouTube led me further to this (in which the volume is very loud):


Once I got on the bus I headed to the back where the man in front of me began to go under the seats and pick up the trash that was lying around on the floor. I reached under my seat and pulled out an empty McDonald's Hot Fudge Sundae cup with a cigarette wrapper in it. I attempted to hand it to the man who was stuffing trash into a plastic bag he'd found while cleaning but he only walked passed me. I stood up and put the trash I'd picked up into a plastic trash bag that was hanging from the railing near the rear door of the bus and sat back down. The man eventually sat down in the seat in front of me, well put together, shirt tucked in, un-bent, un-dirtied, nearly un-worn looking baseball cap announcing his U.S. Veteran status. I thanked him. "Well, I'm just helping those that. . .can't seem to help themselves," he said with a wry smile.

He proceeded to tell me about the plan to control American Indians, African Americans, and Asians created by the likes of "Rockefeller and the rest of them". He told me how, "They'll make a slave out of you too by making you work for them and making you pay taxes." Most of what he said was unintelligible because the din of the bus overcrowded his words. Every once in a while I caught a sentence or two. It was like being in a dream; the more I tried to listen the more I couldn't hear. After telling me something about how to deduct 1/2 your health care on your taxes "on the front end" and then deduct the other half of your health care "at the back end", he rang the bell to stop the bus, smiled at me and said loud enough for those around to hear, "You should know, everyone should know, the letter of the law for themselves," and stood up and got off. A couple of people glanced at me and then went back to watching the empty row houses stream by.

About a month ago there had been a rash of cars being broken into on my block, but around the corner. Residents made signs out of cardboard boxes and wrote on them "BEWARE THIEF BREAKING INTO CAR WINDOWS" and then duct taped them to each tree lining the sidewalk on the block. Walking home past them from the bus stop one notices that they now say, "BEWARE you are loved THIEF BREAKING INTO CAR WINDOWS", "BEWARE THIEF BREAKING INTO CAR WINDOWS you have my heart", and "BEWARE THIEF, you are a thief and you are loved, BREAKING INTO CAR WINDOWS".