So once again, after a nearly three month wait, I found myself back on a bus!
Now, you know what a bus looks like on the inside ... they are all fairly similar; two or three inwards facing seats, the others facing forward on the left and right along the length of the bus with an aisle in the middle ... so I won't bore you with intricate details ... although I think I just did.
What most buses have in common are those poles from ceiling to floor at the aisle-end of alternate seats.
I never, ever, sit on those seats if it can be at all avoided.
It's all because of odours.
Vile, stinky, smelly, cheesy armpit odours!
Y'see, everyone, except the real oldies on the bus, will get up and start walking to the front whilst the bus is still in motion.
This means that the poles are used as support.
This means at any given time during a bus journey, at least one disgusting armpit will hover above your head, sometimes for minutes at a time, until the bus stops and they get off!
Today ... wouldn't ya just know it ... the bus was full to bursting and I ended up in one of the aisle seats with a pole.
Three times (Yes, three!!!) a passenger of dubious personal hygiene stood above me allowing their nausea inducing 'scent' to drift over me.
In my profession I have to deal with some pretty stink situations ... but those armpits!!!!
Although it was now several hours ago, the memory of those smells are still with me and I fear that I may have been scarred for life!
Anyway, all that aside, today we were also treated to a floor show of sorts.
The 'performance' came from an elderly man in an over large quilted jacket. He sat on an inward facing seat directly behind the driver and was what I could only describe as a 'serial gesticulator'. That is to say, that whatever seemed to be going through his mind was 'enacted' with a series of arm/hand gestures and finger twitching.
At first it was merely amusing, but then the bus was delayed when we encountered a dustbin truck that was blocking the street ahead of us.
Quilted-jacket-man jumped to his feet, his arms waving wildly and his mouth silently, but with an aggressive expression on his face, spouting obscenities at the crew of the dustbin truck.
When we eventually managed to pass them, he began tapping his watch, indicating the delay that they had caused, and offered up that age-old British silent comment; the two fingered salute*.
Minutes later there was another delay and Quilted-jacket-man responded by instantly leaping from his seat (where he had bee silently gesticulating) and moved to the front of the bus, his arms flailing as he displayed his displeasure.
This time, however, the object of his silent rage thwarted him, and he was forced to take his seat, head bowed.
This time the delay had been caused by pall bearers loading a coffin into a hearse!
The passengers sniggered.
"Bastards!" said Quilted-jacket-man.
From than on, he was silent, but continued to gesticulate as if his life depended on it.
*the British version of 'The Finger'
Showing posts with label passengers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label passengers. Show all posts
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
10 Observations Made On The #130 Bus to Pontypridd*
- Unsupervised children lick windows.
- More than one fat person waddling up the aisle make the bus rock sufficiently to cause seasickness.
- The loudest person on the bus always sits next to me.
- There is always chewing-gum stuck to the seat I sit on.
- There is always one person on the bus that needs the toilet and lets everyone know what'll happen if they don't go soon.
- When two buses park opposite each other, someone always starts a silent conversation with a passenger they know on the other bus (mostly only women do this as 'womanly secrets' are quite often passed back and forth using the 'lip reading' method of conversation to avoid husbands from hearing anything).
- Bus drivers stop at least 3 metres past the point at which passengers are supposed to mount the bus.
- Bus drivers will quite often stop at the wrong side of the bus stop, thus causing the waiting passengers-to-be to troop to the other end, only to have the bus driver correct his error and move to the proper boarding point and, seeing no one waiting, he will promptly drive off before they can troop back.
- The weirdest passengers ALL know each other and hold conversations that are shouted, not spoken.
- If you don't shift your arse down that aisle when you reach your stop, don't expect the driver to react to your frantic cries for him to wait a moment.
* These observations were made over a number of weeks. I would hate to be responsible putting anyone off travelling
on one of our wonderful buses.
on one of our wonderful buses.
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Another Day, Another Bus!
Today I would like to sing the praises of the bus drivers of South Wales, as dedicated and daring a bunch (insert the correct group noun for bus drivers if you know it) of rapscallions you could ever have the pleasure of crossing paths with.
Let me take you through today's journey.
The bus arrived at five past ten this morning. A full five minutes early! We boarded, flashing our bus passes as we did so, then proceeded to sit on the bus for ten minutes whilst the driver ate a sandwich and poured tea from a flask. At a quarter past ten he drove on. Now we were running a full five minutes late!
Almost immediately the bus was directed towards the narrow streets of Tonypandy where he jinked and jived that bus this way and that to a chorus of Whoa's and Phew's from the passengers.
To his credit, and he would no doubt argue it was due to his great skill, no wing mirror's were clipped and no pedestrians were squished on our way to the main bus stop of the town.
There were numerous stops along the route but the one that sticks in my mind was in the town of Porth, where we parked up in the bus depot and our driver left us. For approximately ten minutes we sat there with nothing to do but idly peruse the occupants of the bus next to us and was in a similar, driver-less predicament.
I tried hard not to let my eyes linger too long on the red hot blonde beauty on the other bus but, to my shame,I did check her out several times. Two seats in front of this beauty I saw a child of perhaps 5 or six doing his best to keep the bus he was on tidy and clean by slowly licking the inside of the window. He stopped occasionally to poke his tongue out at me.
When our new driver arrived he immediately, and much to our annoyance, refrained from boarding and joined a group of his colleagues to express hearty and manly greetings and exchange pleasantries of, I presume, bus driver-ly nature.
When he finally did take his place behind the wheel and started the engine we were, by my watch, running fifteen minutes late and passenger tempers were beginning to fray.
This is when a bus drivers wicked sense of humour comes into play. You see, in order to get himself, his bus and indeed us, back on schedule we were treated to not one, but two, demonstrations of bus driver mean bastard-ness of the highest order.
This is what happened:
Later, just before we reached our destination (Pontypridd), there was another incident which raised eyebrows and infuriated would-be passengers. At a bus stop stood six or seven people, several of whom stuck out their arms to alert our driver to their presence.
Did he stop at the right place?
No!
He drove at least twenty metres passed the stop and parked beside three men in florescent jackets. The men were obviously fellow bus drivers, and colleagues of our driver, exercising their right to free bus travel.
Once again a stream of would-be passengers jogged, waddled and hobbled towards the doors of the bus but our bus driver, who seemed totally devoid of any kind of Christmas spirit, had other ideas and pulled back onto the road.
We got off the bus at the next stop, but I couldn't help wondering if our driver would continue on his one man mission to selflessly piss-off any and all passengers during the rest of his trip to his final destination of Caerphilly.
Let me take you through today's journey.
The bus arrived at five past ten this morning. A full five minutes early! We boarded, flashing our bus passes as we did so, then proceeded to sit on the bus for ten minutes whilst the driver ate a sandwich and poured tea from a flask. At a quarter past ten he drove on. Now we were running a full five minutes late!
Almost immediately the bus was directed towards the narrow streets of Tonypandy where he jinked and jived that bus this way and that to a chorus of Whoa's and Phew's from the passengers.
To his credit, and he would no doubt argue it was due to his great skill, no wing mirror's were clipped and no pedestrians were squished on our way to the main bus stop of the town.
Now the towns of the welsh valleys date back to a time when a persons only means of transport were his/her feet or pony and trap. They were never planned and built without thought for modern forms of mass transport and therefore you will quite often find the front doors of the terraced houses are very near to the road. As almost every family now has a car the parking in those towns is strictly limited and, in quite a few places, illegal so, as you can imagine, driving a bus through them is not an easy affair.
There were numerous stops along the route but the one that sticks in my mind was in the town of Porth, where we parked up in the bus depot and our driver left us. For approximately ten minutes we sat there with nothing to do but idly peruse the occupants of the bus next to us and was in a similar, driver-less predicament.
I tried hard not to let my eyes linger too long on the red hot blonde beauty on the other bus but, to my shame,I did check her out several times. Two seats in front of this beauty I saw a child of perhaps 5 or six doing his best to keep the bus he was on tidy and clean by slowly licking the inside of the window. He stopped occasionally to poke his tongue out at me.
When our new driver arrived he immediately, and much to our annoyance, refrained from boarding and joined a group of his colleagues to express hearty and manly greetings and exchange pleasantries of, I presume, bus driver-ly nature.
When he finally did take his place behind the wheel and started the engine we were, by my watch, running fifteen minutes late and passenger tempers were beginning to fray.
This is when a bus drivers wicked sense of humour comes into play. You see, in order to get himself, his bus and indeed us, back on schedule we were treated to not one, but two, demonstrations of bus driver mean bastard-ness of the highest order.
This is what happened:
- He deliberately pulled up at a stop at the wrong end of the bus shelter
- Realising this, the passengers troop to the back of the shelter in order to board
- On seeing that the would-be passengers were almost at the door of the bus, the driver pulled forward to the correct boarding point.
- The would-be passengers turn, complaining, and troop back to the front of the shelter.
- The bus driver, seeing no one at the correct boarding point pulls out and back into traffic, leaving a gaggle of irate would-be's waving there arms and throwing umbrella's after the bus.
Later, just before we reached our destination (Pontypridd), there was another incident which raised eyebrows and infuriated would-be passengers. At a bus stop stood six or seven people, several of whom stuck out their arms to alert our driver to their presence.
Did he stop at the right place?
No!
He drove at least twenty metres passed the stop and parked beside three men in florescent jackets. The men were obviously fellow bus drivers, and colleagues of our driver, exercising their right to free bus travel.
Once again a stream of would-be passengers jogged, waddled and hobbled towards the doors of the bus but our bus driver, who seemed totally devoid of any kind of Christmas spirit, had other ideas and pulled back onto the road.
We got off the bus at the next stop, but I couldn't help wondering if our driver would continue on his one man mission to selflessly piss-off any and all passengers during the rest of his trip to his final destination of Caerphilly.
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