Passive-aggressive Midwestern woman nearly resorts to full-blown aggression

A young Minnesotan very nearly lost her cool whilst aboard a Portland bus coming home from work Friday afternoon. Though normally a textbook example of passive-aggressivity, Neenuh insisted a combination of exterior factors caused the incident-that-almost-was.

She arrived at her bus stop at approximately 3:20 p.m., expecting the bus to come at any second. Nevertheless, she took a seat on the vacant bench and returned a call to her older brother. Soon afterward, a leathery older woman made it known that she wanted Neenuh to remove her lunchbox from the adjacent seat so she could join her on the bench. Neenuh obliged more than willingly.

Soon the woman, who was emitting copious amounts of vodka from her pores, began babbling incoherently while Neenuh attempted to converse with her brother. When the bus finally arrived a full 20 minutes later, the woman insisted Neenuh let her borrow her sunglasses for the next month and a half. Neenuh declined.

Once aboard the crowded bus, Neenuh made her way to the back and spotted a seat next to a pimply but otherwise harmless young gentleman. She contentedly switched on her iPod to listen to the latest installment of This American Life and cracked open a local magazine.

The gentleman began bobbing his head ever so gently, entering a slumber so blissful he lost all sense of propriety and personal space and began encroaching on Neenuh's. On a normal day, she would have ignored it, but this same gentleman was emitting gaseous odors of beef jerky, and she was in no mood to handle that.

She had passed a sleepless night and consumed iced tea at lunch (the caffeine of which disrupted her delicate countenance and gave her the shakes). A full bladder completed the trifecta known to cause Neenuh to lash out at unsuspecting boyfriends, family members and the occasional civil servant.

When heavy sighs and eye rolls directed in his general direction proved fruitless, she considered more drastic measures. She imagined slapping him across the face for allowing his gaping mouth to come dangerously close to her bosom. She considered shoving him squarely into the window. She mused about elbowing him in the gut.

Taking a deep breath, she refrained from any of these actions, instead deciding she could come up with a much more amusing culmination of events on her blog.

The offensive young man suddenly bashed his head into the seat in front of them of his own accord, immediately woke up and apologized to Neenuh for being such a neanderthal. He then revealed that to make up for his transgressions he would pay off her student loans, making her completely debt-free.