Deirdre ate a bus stop. Thankfully, it was one of those newfangled bus stops with a GPS locator inside, so the bus company quickly found out where it was. They sent a man to her house to ask for it back. However, Deirdre refused to either vomit the bus stop, or digest it.
They argued for a while. Deirdre was stubborn. The man asked why she'd eaten the bus stop in the first place.
“It's just plastic and metal,” he said. “Couldn't taste very good.”
“It wasn't for the taste,” said Deirdre. “And besides, I wasn't hungry. It's the principle of the thing.”
“Which principle is that?” asked the man.
She stared him down until he got nervous and went quiet.
“Six times this week,” Deirdre began. “Six times this week, I've been late for work, and it's your fault. I get there, to the bus stop, in plenty of time. 7.27, says the little sign. That's when my bus is supposed to come. 7.27am, and a 28-minute journey into town, so I'd be at work with five minutes to spare. 7.55, I'm supposed to arrive. So every day, without fail, I'm at the bus stop bang-on 7.20. Seven full minutes early. I don't leave these things to chance, you know.”
“I bet you don't,” said the man.
“Shut it. So I'm there in plenty of time, and sure enough, come 7.27, the bus arrives. I stand up next to the bus stop and wave my arm. Not a small, dignified wave. Why be subtle? I wave my arm, my whole arm. Like this.”
Deirdre waved her arm in the man's face. His name, by the way, was Hugo, but he didn't introduce himself and Deirdre didn't ask.
“Only, it doesn't pull up. The bus.”
“It doesn't?”
“No. Every day this week. And not just this week – for months now – more often than not, the bus drives straight past me.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Hugo, who didn't sound particularly sorry.
“So today I woke up and I said to myself, 'Enough is enough. If that bus goes past me again, I swear to God… I'm going to do something drastic.' So guess what happened?”
“It happened again.”
“It happened again, damn it!” yelled Deirdre abruptly. Then she resumed her calm, soft-spoken manner. “And so I ate it.”
“You ate it,” repeated Hugo.
“I ate it.”
“I've been meaning to ask,” he said, “You say you ate it. And I believe you. GPS doesn't lie. I've used the sensor”—Hugo brandished a small electronic gadget—“and it's definitely in your stomach. But just… How? How did you manage to eat a bus stop?”
“Well, it's quite simple,” said Deirdre. “Like this.” She gnashed her teeth together, getting offensively close to Hugo's face. She grunted and made a weird “num-num-num” sound.
“Right, right… But how did you actually managed to, like, chew it? And to swallow…Actually swallowing metal, that doesn't sit right with me.”
“Sit right? It's not supposed to sit right. I'm trying to upset you.”
“Well, in a roundabout sort of way, you've succeeded. Congratulations, I guess?”
“Thanks,” said Deirdre.
“But the matter remains, I've got to have it back. My bosses, they want it. God knows why they want a bus stop that's been chewed up into tiny pieces and partially digested by some crazy lady—no offence—but want it they do, and it's muggins here who's got to cough it up. Or rather, it's you. Please cough it up. I'd like to go home now.”
Deirdre stared him dead in the eye.
“Well…?” said Hugo.
“No.”
The argument went on like this for a while. Eventually, they reached an agreement. Rather than retrieving the bus stop from Deirdre's belly, and reinstating it by the side of the road, Hugo proposed that the buses track the belly-bound bus stop's GPS coordinates — apparently buses can do that now — and swing by to pick her up each morning, wherever she may be.
Deirdre said, “That is satisfactory,” or words to that effect, and Hugo left her house forever, confused but satisfied that the strange encounter was over. So, if you're ever in a café around 7.27am and you spot Deirdre, run for your life – a bus could come crashing through the wall at any moment. And if you look like a bus stop, she might eat you.