ok – what would you do?

On my endless bus trip to Albany, which I hasve made many times, I had a new adventure. I am an old-looking person who walks with difficulty, although I no longer need to use a cane when there isn’t snow or ice on the ground. I cough a lot. I carry a C-PAP when I travel. I sometimes look confused. 

South Station on the day before Thanksgiving was really crowded, and I needed to change from the Maine bus to the Albany bus. The lines were very long, but things were fairly festive. One of the bus station personell came through and asked a few of us older people and people traveling with children to come to the front of the line, saying they were adding busses, and they wanted to make sure we got on safely and easily. As I was standing where I had been placed, a young ewoman next to me struck up a conversation, saying she had been waiting since 2:00 to get on a bus, and I answered that it was a very crowded traveling day. Then she asked me why I was standing where I was, and I smiled and said pleasantly that I was standing where the station personell placed me, so I could get on the bus a little easier. She became belligerent and said she should be standing where I was because she had been there longer (how did she know how long I had been there?).

I pointed to the families and the other older passengers and said we were all just standing where we were asked to stand, and began to point out the obvious reasons why we had been placed there, when she began yelling that I was “disrespecting her,” and asked a station person to move me out of the way and to pu her in the front of the line. He looked at her in bemusement and said very calmly that I should just stay where I was and that she should stay calm. When he left she continue to talk loudly about how I was disrespecting her. 

When we got on the bus, which was comfortable and not crowded, she continued to talk to others around me about how I was “disrespecting” her. They seemed not to pay attention to her, and looked embarrassed.

As a teacher, I felt like trying to explain to her why I was placed where i was, and to point out to her that she was on the bus before me, actually, because she pushed past me.

I was tired and somewhat upset. I said nothing. I tried to put it out of my mind.

I think that maybe I reminded her of someone she didn’t like, since she didn’t attack the families or the other older people who were standing with me.

Perhaps I didn’t understand her completely, either, and didn’t respond as I could have, but I truly didn’t understand where she was coming from until she began speaking loudly. I was at a loss.

What would you have done?