10:03 - Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006
the eyebrow man
On the bus on the way back from the tea factory tour there was a man in the front seat who kept raising his eyebrows as high as they would go, and then lowering them as low as they would go. He would oscillate about every 1-2 seconds, and while he did this, he would wheel in his chair and stare at every single person on the bus in turn. Depending on which version of him you got, he either looked extremely surprised and delighted to see you or like he had a machete and he was going to come at you with it as soon as he was able to wriggle it out of his back pocket.
He really was one of those people for whom an eyebrow-switch made a huge difference. Each time he switched, he looked like a different person. He realized, too, halfway through the ride, that his baseball cap was hiding his most effective upward swings of the brow and took it off, glaring menacingly, staring surprisedly, murderously plotting, receiving some pleasant news.
When he had been focused intently on my place in the bus for awhile, having stopped circling around and giving everyone a turn, when the time he'd been looking just at me hit ten or so seconds, I started to worry. Then I glanced next to me. There was Nick, hairnet from the tea factory stretching in his hands, raising, lowering, raising, lowering his eyebrows at the eyebrow man.
And thus a fantastic battle was begun!
Nick raised his, made a point to look absolutely thrilled to see the eyebrow man.
The eyebrow man tugged his down over his eyes to the point where he was practically blinded and looked completely insane.
Nick's eyebrows plummetted towards the bus floor, instantly giving him the look of a pain-and-anger-crazed bassett hound.
The eyebrow man lifted his as if in appreciation of Nick's eyebrow skills, and continued lifting them until they practically hit his hairline and he looked like an angel, albeit a bald, raggedy, parachute-pants wearing angel.
And on and on.
The eyebrow man had a stop before ours, so that means Nick won!
However. As the eyebrow man got off the bus, he continued raising and lowering, raising and lowering, glancing angrily/angelically at passersby. Nick stopped as soon as his opponent had left the premises. Now who's the winner...?

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