'It is impolite to stare, stop staring, don't stare.' I repeated scoldingly to myself as I tried feverantly not to stare.
I walked to the bus stop and stopped in surprise shock as I tried not to stare at a gentleman wearing the most dilapidated winter jacket I have ever seen. I couldn't comprehend the thought process behind the man's choice. Then I scolded myself for judging because the reality is I don't know his story. My eyes kept straying to the jacket. It was ripped everyhere. I though perhaps he's transient or perhaps suffering from mental health issues however those thoughts were quickly dismissed when I over heard bits of his conversation with another man.
'Stop staring, stop staring I scolded myself.'
In order to not be rude I walked out of the bus shelter then unobtrusively took a picture of the jacket to share with my eldest daughter who's always dogging me about wearing my old jacket.
The bus arrived and we all boarded. At the next stop a woman I always say hi to came on. We said morning to each other and sat opposite each other. She looked to her right and spotted the man with the ripped up jack and waved him over in a familiar hello. He greeted her and she stared in shock at his jacket as he sat next to her. Then she said, "why you wearing that nasty tear up jacket?" He said something to her which I didn't heat but she responded with, "yeah but still you shouldn't be walking the road with a jacket looking like that!" He immediately put both his hands over the jacket pockets to hide it's defacing. I gave a shock laugh at her bold statement to him. She gave me this incredulous look that said, "can you he came outside with that jacket on?" The man kept his hands over the jacket inshame the whole ride.
At the subway my casual hello friend said to me. " I can't believe he would wear that ripped up jacket saying he was going to do dirty work and that justified him walking the street looking like that."
