Dad's Conversation on A Crowded Bus

I had just mounted the crowded bus when a rotund lady motioned me toward a narrow interval between herself and another passenger.  I declined the offer, but she insisted, rising a little from her seat and reaching out to pull me to what seemed a severely limited space.  I sensed that further argument would be useless so I wedged myself within the constraints of the seat between my benefactor and another ample matron.  I felt surely that if I resisted further, she would lift me physically, shopping bags and all, and deposit me into the vacancy.

I say this lovingly.  I am familiar with the elderly Russian ladies who abound, either mounting or leaving the buses at Fairfax and Santa Monica. They evince much of the gregarious, the maternal, the helpful and clearly the conviction that men do not know what is really good for them.

There ensued a verbal interchange between my benefactor and a slim bespectacled woman standing in front of us.  The exchange was not clear to me.  It was in Russian.  I took it that the intercessor was disagreeing with the solicitude of the seated woman.  I decided to ask.

"Do you feel the lady should have allowed me to stand?" I asked.

"Oh, no," she replied.

"But you must agree that she had little regard for my reluctance to sit," I pressed.

"Perhaps," she said, "but I do feel that her actions were generous, caring and in your best interest."

"I agree," I concluded, "but as a corollary to that logic, would you say that women know better than men what is good for them?"

She hesitated to answer.  I saw her look searchingly at my seated companion, who was evincing complete indifference to our conversation, and was ingesting a donut. I hastened to assure her that her companion did not understand enough English to generate continued interest. I added, "If she did, she would have a decided opinion on the matter with a display of much gesticulation."

The standing lady smiled. "Surely you generalize?"  Genuine amusement overspread her face.  Her white, even teeth accentuated by laughing blue eyes dispelled my first impression of plainness.  Perhaps I had been misled by the heavy rimmed spectacles she wore.  I decided to provoke her further.

"Would you have done the same in her place?" I offered.

She laughed and quipped.  "Considering the size of the space and the size of the lady, I would have risen and offered you the seat.  Of course, if I were the seated one, I doubt there would have been an insufficiency of space.  Certainly, I would not have reached out for you.  I am less primitive."

"But you agree that men need the guidance and at least the gentle persuasion of women--for their own benefit of course.  This tendency may be genetic from the Beginning, in Eden. It was Eve who was adventurous, who saw that the forbidden fruit was good to eat, and later, induced the indolent Adam that  'surely he (thou) shall not die."

She laughed. "Surely women are entitled to a little pay back. Eve took all the blame. What was it the cowardly Adam said?  'She gave me of the tree and I did eat.'"

It was her stop.  She smiled as she left the bus.  She had had the last word.