Necessary Hug

So the other day on the bus....

visual: Me waiting for the bus in my oversized 70's shades, a full on lululemon onsie (yes, you read that right, a workout romper, if you will), and my bright pink patent leather gym bag. Random dude on bench. Older couple from London strolling around the vicinity. And a lean, bearded woman from Switzerland waiting w/ her FULL shopping cart of 'treasures', maroon sequence pants and an oversized mens T-shirt with one arm filling the armhole and the other amidst the baggy inside.

So here I am, waiting for the bus to arrive. I never know what time it gets there - I just keep my fingers crossed that I don't miss the one heading my way. Well, the Swiss woman with the shopping cart and sparkle pants strikes up a conversation with me, pointing out that I look "hip and cool". Must have been the one piece outfit! Well, she is just girating around while conversing, like there is music playing, in which there very could have been in her own head. She is proudly holding up and seemingly showcasing a VOSS water bottle. That fancy, overpriced water you order at restaurants or bars when you do not choose tap water. Fancy schmancy - stupid really. Well this woman thinks it is just the coolest thing and is asking me where it comes from, and if she should keep it or throw it away, who drink this type of water and why they make the bottle appear this way...? Questions galore.

I tell her to keep it if she likes it, or recycle it and get that 5 cents for it at the recycling center.

She ponders and decides this is a treasure worth keeping and places it gently back in her cart. It is plastic, mind you.

I take a deep breathe. Look a little farther down the street searching for that beautiful number 4. Nothing. I begin to wonder why that woman has a mustache and beard. Could it be stress? Malnourishment? Homeless hygeine?

Oh goodness, here she comes again. I am a nice person, so I continue to chat her up. She asks me for money. I almost chuckle in my head...me? I need this money for the busy lady. She forgives me but then....she has one last question.

I turn to look at her, beard and all, and there she is close as all get out to me. "Can I have a hug".

I hesitate. If any of you know me, it takes me a hot minute to become that 'hugging' person in your life. But really, how do you say no to a hug? So she just comes on in for the real thing! I realize then that only one arm moves as the other stay stationary under the baggy T, so it is a half hug. But she smelled something fierce. And she held on tight. I felt of brush of her whiskers against my neck and I was like, I am definitely getting some type of Karma points for this! I squeezed back.

Then my bus came. We said our good byes.

How ironic, waiting at the bus stop having a conversation about water you cannot afford, nor would waste your money on. Yet that bottle become that woman's proud possesion. Funny world.

What did I learn? Well, everyone needs hugs. Right? And even though I kept smelling my onsie for the latter part of that day, thinking and double checking that maybe she had left some of her lingering aroma on me - I felt good.

Maybe she really needed that hug.

Or she was trying to pickpocket my huge pink purse with that one arm....

I'm going with the necessary hug. So go on, do one thing a day that scares you, hug a homeless, bearded woman in shiny pants at your bus stop!