Angry Young Career Women

All too often, I see the same person. Not literally the same person, but, you know, that person. The woman who boards the bus in a rush, as if walking faster down that aisle will get her to work sooner. She sits down at the first available seat, blackberry in hand, and immediately starts emailing. You wonder how she hits the keypad accurately. She is carrying a "Journal" (to the lay person, this means the Wall Street Journal) under her arm, a grande latte in the other hand. She sports a darkly colored, conservative outfit. She is beyond uptight. She is wearing sunglasses, not because it's sunny on the bus, but because she probably has no realization that they are still on her head. She is skinny, and stiff. She is zoned out. She is... wait for it... the DC career woman.

I saw such a woman on the bus today. She sat down across from me, completely unaware of what was around her. She frantically entered digits and letters into her blackberry. She never looked up. She was wearing a black dress and tennis shoes. She was, let me tell you, H... O... T... hot.

(Disclaimer, the previous sentence was meant to convey sarcasm, because, as much as I try, I cannot imagine this level of anxious energy and rigidness being attractive.)

In fact, I wondered how women like that get dates. How do you enter into relationships with people, romantic or otherwise, when you don't even look them in the eye? How do you go out to dinner if conversation is constantly being interrupted by a vibrating mobile, um, thing?

As I contemplated these thoughts, simultaneously thanking the lord I am not like this, I felt the sudden urge to throw something at her. I don't know why, but I became really frustrated. I wanted to shake her and say, "Wake up, you self-absorbed little snot. There is life to be lived! Put down the blackberry and pick up an ipod!"

I wanted to be the Julia Roberts to her Richard Gere. But then I thought, that'd be a little weird. A, I'm not a prostitute, and B, I'm not gay. But man, if I could've run her toes through the grass this morning, I think the world would be a better place.