It is a long story leading up…. but I had to ride the Charleston Area Transportation Authority Bus today.  The CARTA Bus…”It Connects Us All…” is the catchy slogan.

Well, today it connected me across town, and as always on ANY public bus or transit system, you have the opportunity to people watch… and occasionally eve’s drop.

So about at Meeting and Charlotte Street, a man who looked liked he had been drinking… A LOT… got on the bus.  The only open seat was directly in front of me….. but right next to a priest.

The guys’s shirt was all stained, and his face had a few bright red lipstick marks (at least it looked like lipstick).  Anyway, you could see that he still had a  little half-empty bottle of whiskey sticking out of his pocket.  Seems like he’d just come from a “good time”……

He opened his newspaper and started reading.   A couple minutes later, he asked the priest, “Hey Father, can you tell me what causes arthritis?”

The priest kind of copped an attitude all of a sudden…. “Mister, it’s caused by loose living, sleeping around with cheap women, too much alcohol, and contempt for your fellow man.”  That old priest was pretty abrupt and obtuse… I thought.

The drunk guy just sort of looked at him and blinked a little.  “Imagine that,” the guy muttered. He returned to reading his paper.  Meanwhile, I am having a very difficult time containing myself….  but I kept my mouth shut.

The priest seemed to get kind of edgy in his seat…. like he was thinking about what he had said.

So he turns to the man and apologized: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?”

“I don’t have arthritis, Father,” the drunk said, “but I just read in the paper that the Pope does.”

Ahhhh, the public transportation authority….. “It connects us all.”