On the buses.

I quite often get the bus to and from work. That’s because my wife usually needs the car and we can’t afford/wouldn’t want a second. I sometimes find that there are things that take place on my bus route that give a brief glimpse in to a whole other world of lives lived; a small peek of some of near endless micro-universes out there that I will never register on, and that will never register on mine, with the exception of this brief moment.

There was the young girl getting the same bus home as I was, and the giant douche that sat next to her. I’m no good at guessing ages, but I wouldn’t put her older than her mid-teens at a guess. Sitting there, minding her own business, while this tall overweight guy, probably in his mid-twenties, gets on and plonks himself right next to her, even though there are plenty of other free seats (a major breach of bus etiquette), and, for want of a better phrase, rather aggressively invades her personal space. It made for quite an uncomfortable journey, her shrinking and looking resolutely at her phone or out the window while he looks, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, at her body. Now, this looked disturbing to me, but perception is the mother of deception, and I couldn’t say for sure that what I saw was what was actually taking place. I did, however, keep an eye on his behaviour for the rest of my journey. Not that I know what I might have done had he crossed yet further over the line, but we all like to think of ourselves as decent people that would take action to prevent suffering if we could, don’t we? As it happens, she got off, without him following, at my stop. And then proceeded to walk the same way as me. Right up to the point she passed the front of my house. I dread to think how much more stress I put on her as I followed her along the streets, silently, in the dark. I think speaking up and saying something like ‘Don’t worry, I’m not a weirdo!’ would fail to improve matters.

There was the time when we were queueing to get on the bus that had just arrived, late as it often is lately. A woman, with seemingly limited knowledge of social etiquette, walks up to the front of the queue, presents her ticket to the driver and walks on. Nobody said a word, but you could feel their outrage at this stranger in their midst, not doing things right. Of course, I did mention above about the pitfalls of perception, and it’s true that this is just what I thought. I was, essentially, making up a story in my head about what I thought everyone was thinking – the queue-jumper I assumed just lacked the appropriate cultural knowledge regarding the British obsession with queueing, and then, when I saw everybody’s silently aghast faces I assumed they were all justifying the awful things they read in the newspapers about migrants being something less than they are; less than human. All because she walked onto a bus. Of course, none of that could be even close to the truth.

Coming home late one Friday night and three drunken guys stumble on the bus I’m sitting on, head to the back and proceed to act like drunken buffoons. Before we leave, a woman steps on and asks for help. It seems she’s an off-duty nurse or possibly a paramedic and she’s worried because an injured drunken idiot she was treating has wandered off. She asks for help finding him and without even the slightest hesitation the aforementioned three guys simply get up and go to help – no questions, no asking for refunds on their tickets, just concerned with helping this woman find her injured charge. When you take the time to observe people and see them as people first rather than stereotypes and caricatures, then even people that would usually annoy the shit out of you are, when you get right down to it, alright.

Behind a guy in the queue once he only had a fiver to pay for his ticket, but the driver had no small change. I offered him the 60p he needed for his ticket, for which he was surprised and grateful. And then he surprised me by turning around and handing me his £3 change. Positivity breeds positivity, compassion breeds compassion and conversely, negativity and hate breed only…well, I’m sure you can finish that thought for yourself, but try taking a moment to think of all the small occurrences every day that illustrate the inescapable truth of it.

Stepped off the bus one night only to get slammed into by some fool on a bike flying down the path. I’m not exactly small, but the force of this collision literally sent me flying, leaving me sprawled on the pavement. Stumbling to my feet, I dust myself off and take out my headphones. My first, irritated thought was along the lines of What the hell did you think was going to happen when you saw a bus stop at bus stop on the very path you were cycling along like you had a rocket up your arse? But I don’t articulate this, and instead take a look at him. He is clearly mortified, genuinely apologetic and concerned for my welfare. What good will me having a rant at him do? Bugger all is the truth. Luckily I’m big enough to take a hit like that and get back up, I reassure him. I’m a little dazed, but I’ll be fine. He’s shook up enough that I get the feeling he’ll be more careful when buses pull up in future, so he’s unlikely to be smashing into some kid or old lady any time soon. When I arrive home and start to explain what happened to Rach, I can’t help but have a very brief cry; it seems I was affected by the smash more than I thought. Soon resolved by hugs and a cup of tea though. Long story slightly less long, I’m fine.

The only thing that has genuinely pissed me off on a bus recently is a driver. They’ve recently rearranged the routes where I live, and while I don’t really see that there’s much to complain about, the bus I catch to work in the morning is always late. Sometimes 5 minutes, often 10, routinely 15, sometimes 20 or 25. It’s a bit annoying – clearly the new route or the times need tweaking a little on a weekday morning. On a Saturday I was taking my 2 girls up to town and the bus turned up, on time, and I was helping my 8-year-old count out her change for her ticket. While clearly trying to stay cheerful but just as obviously getting annoyed, the driver basically told us to hurry up. I very nearly launched into a moaning rant right there – not once has any of the drivers who were late in the mornings shown the slightest hint of apology, not once indicating they give a shit about being so late so often, so where the frick does this weekend driver get off being pissed off by my daughter practising counting out change? I didn’t though. I held my tongue, because do you know what that driver did? That driver gave me the idea for this blog. So there you go – annoyed and inspired in equal measure.

So there it is. A quick glimpse into the lives of some of my fellow bus adventurers. As usual, I don’t really have a point, but the general gist is, as usual, we should all try to be a bit nicer in what we do every day.