Dear New York Lady,

This is just to apologize for my part in the misunderstanding on the bus today.

I was the last one on at 57th and Lexington. I don't think you realized I was behind you, judging from how you lingered at the door, blocking me from dipping my Metrocard. When I finally got up the stairs, I found you paused just past the seats for the disabled and elderly. When you put your hand up to grab the handrail, I assumed you had decided to stand.

So I moved to pass by you in the aisle. Imagine my surprise when you suddenly lurched over, into me. Color me shocked when you started cursing at me. You looked like a professional, middle-aged, well put-together though you might want to do something about the smoker's lines around your lips. I shouldn't have mumbled back at you under my breath, but you started it.

I really didn't need to hear you vent to the rider next to you about the perceived slight. I could have done without the dirty look for four cross-town blocks. I didn't require an announcement that you "didn't need this" because it had been "a long week." New York Lady, who doesn't have "long" weeks in this city?

So, I'll admit I may have been in a hurry to sit down, and consequently I didn't wait for divine confirmation that you had settled on standing. I don't like being on my feet while the bus is in motion, especially when I am still faint from the fumes of being in the lab for three hours. That's thirty minutes longer than any of my classmates, because I got there to find my carefully stocked drawer had been looted and I needed to request new glassware. Then my assigned partner, Precious, was late, and I had to repeat to her everything the substitute instructor had already said while trying to listen to what she was in the process of saying.

New York Lady, I bet you don't have a lab partner named Precious.