The Skids On The Bus Drink Dew...Dew...Dew

Again, today, I was looking out my window at work. It was right after lunch. I've mentioned looking out my window at work before. To give you some scope as to what I was looking through, I can tell you that this window isn't a small Pella double-hung attic window. In fact, this window happens to be a half wall of glass. Thank goodness it's tinted during the daytime, as I would be sitting in a fishbowl for all of the world to see, and GOD would I hate that. I'd also hate for anyone to see the occasional dumbfounded expression on my face from gawking at passers-by for that matter.

Then again, I can't help but feel like I'm looking into the fishbowl of the world going on around me. My, my, my, the things I see! It's a good thing I'm not A.D.D.

In this particular instance today, two people were standing outside at the bus stop. They were both in their mid-40's. He was dressed in his Thursday finest: an entirely too small, soiled, wife-beater t-shirt, with monochromatic random (and bad) tattoos, jeans and black high-top basketball shoes (and I won't even BEGIN to go into my feelings about black gym shoes...). His significant other was wearing loud floral zooba pants, a purple tube-top (yes, a tube-top), snappy oxydol-white sneakers, and (like her companion) was also bedecked with an array of tattoos. It was also apparent that she wasn't wearing a bra, since her boobs practically sagged down to her femurs. Unfortunate is the word to best describe what I saw. I also wondered why they weren't working.

As they collected their parcels to get on the JTS bus, I noticed that it was the woman that picked up the huge matching purple knapsack, the 3 plastic bags full of what-not, and her cavernous faux-leather (and bedazzled) purse.

What did he pick up? His 1 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. That's all.

I've seen the National Geographic Channel once or twice when they've gone to the remotest villages in the world, and all you ever see is the women chopping down the forest, building the huts, cooking, thatching the roofs, cleaning (and how exactly does one make a dirt floor clean?), and doing all of the work. Meanwhile, the men...they all are napping in hammocks. I'm sure if there was a hammock at the bus stop outside my window today, that man would have been snoozing in it. It just goes to show you that even in America, right or wrong, it's no different in a first world country like ours.

I chuckled a bit to myself as I sat there entranced with the scene unfolding outside my window.

It was the liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

My friend Steve remarked several years ago about this phenomenon, that to this day I still notice. He asked the group of us that night if we've ever noticed that all around Janesville, you always see hardscrabble people (his moniker was "skids") walking around, not working, mid-afternoon, along major streets in Janesville, and they're always carrying a 6 pack of Mountain Dew. Why is that?

No sooner did I recall that comment did a SECOND guy walk by (of the same ilk) whom I've seen walk ALL over Janesville, and has a liter bottle of Mountain Dew in tow. I can't help but wonder why as well. What an interesting case study this would make! Perhaps a photo montage to illustrate the Gillespie theory is in order.....hmmmm....

All I know is, I'm glad I don't drink Mountain Dew.