Recently, sitting behind a well-dressed lady on the bus, I noticed that her voluminous ponytail contained some errant vegetation: seeds and bits of grass. Should I have startled her by tapping her on the shoulder to let her know (she was wearing earbuds), or left her to roam the streets as she was?

T.J., Battery Point, Tas

A: The fact that this woman was well-dressed suggests she takes pride in her appearance, and the fact that she had a voluminous ponytail suggests she views her hair as a prize asset – so you can assume she’d want to know that her head looked like it had a nest of bush rats living on it. But it’s tricky because this woman was also wearing earbuds, which suggests she doesn’t want to be disturbed by anyone about anything, even if there was a honey badger on her shoulder about to tear open the soft bit of her throat.

Maybe this is a time to ponder the biblical Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, which can apply to morality or charity or telling someone they have something in their nose that’s peeking in and out of their nostril like a cave eel. So ask yourself this: would you want a fellow bus passenger to tell you that your hair had seeds in it, or bits of grass, or that it was on fire? If the answer is yes, then do unto this woman as you would have her do unto you: tap her on the shoulder and tell her there’s dirt in her hair. But make sure you tap her very gently: she’s wearing earbuds, so you don’t want to freak her out. She could be completely immersed in music or a podcast or Stephen King’s latest bestselling horror-audiobook, The Shoulder-Tapping Spectre on the Battery Point Bus.

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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