You miss my stop, I kill you.

You know that moment on the bus when someone gets really fucking pissed and just starts beating the shit out of the bus driver because he missed his stop? Yeah...

Seriously, wtf.

When mom and dad fight...

My mother and father never really fought that much when I was growing up. Not to make you all jealous, but our family was, and still is, basically a big ball of love. However, I do recall this one time when we were at the dinner table and my parents were having an argument. I can't remember what it was about - I had to have been about 8 or so - but I remember feeling that tension. And it sure as hell wasn't something I wanted to be in the middle of.

Flash forward to 2011. I am 24 and on the bus. My face is buried in a book, as per usual. This serves two purposes - to expand my literary knowledge and deter strangers from thinking I am at all interested in speaking to them.

I happen to be engrossed in this particular book and am reading somewhat fiendishly. Thus, I am a bit jarred when a tough looking woman comes and sits down aggressively in the seat in front of me. She crosses her arm and sits in a position that makes me think she has one of those pissed-off "hrumph" faces on. You know? Like when you put a toddler in the time-out chair and they want to show you how not okay they are with that, so they sassily cross their arms, furrow their brow and punch out their lips? That's the hrumph.

Some lady across the aisle asks her if she is OK.

"Oh, I'm fiiiiiine! Just fine," she answers in a I'm-clearly-not-fucking-fine voice.

The lady then begins to ask the woman about herself - where she works, how she likes it, how long she has been doing it. Honestly, if I was pissed off, the last thing I would want to do is have small talk with a fellow mass transit user. Then again, that is usually the last thing I want to do regardless of my mood.

The woman is answering her questions, talking in a booming voice. Then, all of a sudden, she swings around in the chair, looks straight over my head, and yells, "You better not be telling any lies about me, you sonofabitch!"

Her face is beet-red and her smoker's teeth are barred at the "sonofabitch" that is apparently behind me.

Then, he pipes up, "Damn woman! I ain't saying anything about you! You're fucking crazy."

Meanwhile, I am starting to get that feeling that I had when I was 8 at the dinner table with mom and dad. Except that this time, "mom and dad" are an unfortunate-looking couple with bad grammar that comes hissing out through their only partially-full set of teeth. So yeah, it's different. But it feels the same.

All I want to do is get up. That seems like a perfectly acceptable thing to do. But then I am afraid that the lady will go off on me. She clearly has a short fuse, and I don't want to light it any more so than it is. So, I sit there and hope that is the end of it.

It's not.

The lady starts talking with the other woman again - very loudly - about what a deadbeat her ex-husband is, and how he doesn't know how to treat a woman, both in life or in the bed. Low blow. She continues on this tirade for the next couple stops. I can hear the man behind me mumbling things, peppered with multiple derogatory names for females.

The tension is rising. I am convinced that at any moment, she is going to turn around and go tribal ape-shit on him, or vice versa, and guess who is in the middle of it all? As I begin to make the decision that I will now and forever just stand on the bus so that I can move at a moment's notice, the woman drops her phone and it slides to the front.

The man thinks this is a laugh-riot and starts cracking up, slapping his knee to emphasize the hilarity of the situation. Imagine a farmer in the 30's, wearing overalls and chewing on straw with his three good teeth, just laughing up a storm. That isn't at all what he looked like (except for maybe the teeth part), but for the sake of dramatic imagery, just go with it.

Remember her short fuse? Well it burnt down and that bomb exploded. She marched right up to him (read: right behind me) and began slapping him on the head, asking what he was laughing about and what was so "damn funny." At this point, the driver decides to get involved by yelling as well.

I always find that yelling works 100% of the time, don't you?

Fortunately, we were just pulling up to my stop, making it acceptable for me to quickly gather my things and haul ass off that bus. As the doors closed, I could still hear the commotion.

When my parents fought that time, they finally asked us kiddos to please go to our bedrooms so that mommy and daddy could talk. Clearly, not everyone has the same courtesy.