



One day before school, I found myself angrilly perched on a public bus stop, furious with the entire world. I was living with my grandmother at the time, and we had spent our entire morning fighting with each other over something totally ridiculous. Usually Grandma slept in till 2 in the afternoon, so I thought I would be able to slip out of the house, like any other morning. This day, the fire-breathing dragon slipped down from her lair and was determined to ruin my day.









She succeeded. At 7:30, I angrily trudged the 3 blocks to the bus stop and stood with a cloud of hate surrounding me.









My life situation was pretty poor at that point, and so I can avoid sounding like an ASPCA commercial I will spare y'all the dismal details. Instead, Let's focus on my wallowing in self pity while a 9 year old girl Hispanic girl tried to ignore me.









So, the 7:39 arrival time for the bus came and went, and I was starting to realize this day could not get any worse, and I'd only been awake for an hour. I was about to drag my sorry butt the 2 miles to school, more miserable than ever, but I decided to give the bus 5 extra minutes.





Two minutes later, an middle aged Asian lady pulls up to the bus stop. She proceeds to roll down the passenger window, and in broken-English she offers me and the little girl a ride.





I had always heard about not taking rides from strangers. I had sat through a quadrillion uncomfortable assembly's about not trusting anyone, and I had heard the haunting child abduction stories. However, I decided to get in this lady's car based on 2 decisions:

A) My life could not possibly get worse at that present moment, so being abducted would be something exciting.

B) I'm pretty sure if my potential abductor tried anything, I would be able to fight off a small, middle aged, asian woman dressed in a pantsuit.

So, I jumped into a strangers' car.



Sorry, McGruff the Crime Dog.













I never learned the woman's name, probably because she wanted to keep her identity as a potential child abductor hidden. However, I learned she was a bank teller in the next town over, and she had a son stationed in Iraq. She missed her son, so she wanted to help someone out with a ride to school. We had an awesome conversation, and in the 5 minute ride to the High School, my outlook on life, and my faith in humanity, were restored.









Of course, when I tried to tell this story to people they reacted with the same shock and horror as you did when you realized this was a story about my potential child abduction. However, there will always be a place in my heart for the little Asian lady, and no one can ever take that away from me.









The moral of this story, kids, is always trust strangers. When someone offers you a ride, TAKE IT. Don't ask questions, just blindly trust in the kindness of strangers and nothing bad will ever happen.









Just don't watch the Jersey Shore, and you'll turn out ok.





-OrangeJuiceComics



