eavesdropping

On the bus from work, I encountered four teen girls in soccer uniforms. They were loud and obnoxious, well, at least one of them was. They were all bilinguals, they said. Two spoke Spanish, one Japanese, and the other Korean as their first language. The most obnoxious one keep yelling, "ARIGATO! ARIGATO!"

When the Japanese speaking girl got off the bus (The obnoxious girl: "Bye! ARIGATO!" The Japanese speaking girl: "Doitashimashite...bye!"), the obnoxious girl turned to the Korean speaking one and started questioning her.

"So, Katie, have you kissed a boy?"
Katie mumbled.
"You are lying! Have you had boyfriends?"
Katie said something.
"Really? When? How many?"
"I don't know. I just don't keep counts!" I heard Katie say a bit desperately.
"You don't keep counts? Hah." The obnoxious girl added triumphantly, "I've had boyfriends."

And then they went on to discussing other things like what names cute boys have (they thought every cute boy was named Lucas) and what teachers they had in middle school, invading the whole space with their conversation like a radio show, without caring about if other passengers could hear what they were saying. Or maybe they wanted us to hear, to listen, because their world as it is is full of things that greatly matter to anyone. That confidence, that certainty, that obnoxiousness, I don't have anymore. Ah how I miss being one of them!