Tell me your crazy bus stories.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, so since I don’t drive, I take the buses an awful lot. I practically have the bus system committed to memory and know it as well as I know the back of my hand.

I’ve been taking the bus for a couple years now regularly, and I’ve seen my share of things that are weird, amazing, strange, scary, and just out there.

One recent tale comes to mind. This happened just a few days ago actually. I live in downtown Phoenix, and so, as you may expect, we have our share of people who aren’t exactly playing with a full deck. So I board the bus with this kind looking black lady and we sit near the front. The ride starts off pleasant enough. I get involved with my James Patterson novel. Suddenly an old lady who’s sitting across from us springs to her feet shouting to the top of her lungs.

“BUS DRIVER! THIS NEGRO IS LOOKING AT ME STRANGELY AND SAYING BAD THINGS TO ME. PROFANE THINGS EVEN.”

The lady in question-the one who had gotten on the bus with me-hadn’t uttered a word since we got on, but that didn’t stop the elderly woman from ranting on.

“I tell ya, she was looking at me evil like! I shouldn’t have to put up with this! This is a public system and I won’t have no lady saying profane things to me! She should have to get off the bus.”

Well, by this time, the girl is getting angry and DOES fire off some names, such as “crazy bitch” and “old nutter”, however, this is the first time she is actually speaking up. The driver stops and the old woman gathers up her things and gets off the bus, talking all the way about how it was all unfair.

Sheesh. I tell you, taking the bus here is never dull.
Tell me a crazy bus story or two that you’ve experienced before.

2

I’ve ridden my share of busses over the years.

Nothing really crazy to report.

There was a time when the bus stopped to pick an elderly gentleman, probably in his 70’s. He was dressed in an old, but well kept suit and a nice hat. Unfortunately, he reeked of urine. He was seemingly oblivious to the fact. He was smiling and talking to other passengers.

We all kinda looked at each other and were probably thinking the same thing in that we felt sorry for the old guy.

3

Well, not on the bus, but I once was taking the train home from Philadelphia (when I was still in NJ), and a cop randomly approached me and asked if I was stoned.

Recently, on the bus into town, a middle-aged man asked me if I’d marry him. Based on what I was reading (Plato’s Republic, for class). It skeeved me the hell out.

4

Grossest bus experience: It’s 7:30 in the morning, and I’m on my way to work. The #2 bus is packed, and there aren’t any seats left, so I’m left holding onto the ceiling bar and trying to keep my balance as the bus hits every pothole and swerves around every pedestrian on High Street. Finally an old man, who’s been muttering to himself the whole time, gets up and I sink gratefully into the vacated seat… then realize, with dawning horror, that I’ve just sat down in a huge pool of Old Man Pee.

Weirdest experience: the dapper-looking gent who sat down next to me and proceeded to extract rock samples from various places around his person (socks, hanky, fruit-of-the-looms) gravely expounding on the mineral properties of each sample, the geological formations in which it was found, and so forth. He then asked me to come with him to West Virginia to assist him with his research, assuring me that I didn’t need to worry, because it would be completely non-sexual(!)

5

Oh man, I don’t have a car, so I ride the bus and el every day and I can’t even think of anything too crazy. It all blurs together after a while. Yeah, there was the guy that ranted about how white people were plotting against black people, and the crazy guy who asked me out because I let him on the bus ahead of me (it was cold and he didn’t have a coat!), but that doesn’t even seem particularly weird anymore.

This stuff definitely happens more on the bus than the el, but that’s possibly because I live on the yuppietastic Brown Line. Maybe if I lived on the Red Line, I’d see more crazy people.

6

Well, let’s see.

I had just left school, and I was in a particularly foul mood, because of my botched classes.

So I get on the Q11 bus, (NY) and I see an acquaintance of mine on the bus. I started to talk to him, and this really old lady comes on the bus. I get up and give my seat to her.

“Damn right.”

“Excuse me?”, I replied.

“You SHOULD get up for me, no, you should be in the back of the bus, you colored.”

“EXCUSE ME?” I was starting to get angrier by the second.

“Go back where you came from.”

To which I replied “And why don’t you crawl up your ass and do the same?”

The entire bus was watching and listening to our little exchange, whereupon hearing my retort, they begin laughing hysterically.

Definitely my oddest bus story.

7

Holy CRAP! I bow to your restraint in not kicking her wizened butt to the curb. Truly, you are wise beyond your years. Which is more than can be said of that *&^%$/!

8

A belated thought, not that it makes it any better for you – I suppose it’s possible that the old lady was in the early stages of Alzheimers or some other form of dementia, and no longer has enough judgment to stop from saying that kind of crap (which may have been considered acceptable in her youth).

9

When I was younger and the earth was a kinder place (hell, it was still cooling), I used to ride the bus to/from school. I actually got to like it, to the point where I would go on Saturdays, climb on the bus and ride the entire route all the way around and then get off where I got on.

You couldn’t pay me enough to do that today.

10

Well, there was that guy who took a plunger out of a woman’s shopping bag, started whacking himself on the head with the plunger, and sang “Clementine.”
The bus driver merely told him to cool it.

On another occasion, when a man told a woman he was an FBI agent and would have to take her purse, the driver made him get off.

And there was the time a man repeatedly asked me if I was Helen Keller, who as far as I know had died some 33 years earlier. I just politely told him no (obviously if I could hear him I wasn’t Helen Keller) and then he would talk to his imaginary friends for a few minutes before asking me the Helen Keller question again.

I’ve learned to avoid the busses in certain areas of Albuquerque. The Central Avenue bus is know as the “Zoo-mobile.”

11

I take the most ghetto bus in Sacramento everyday. There are too many experiences mt olist them all here. The grossest is when an woman deliberately shat herself while sitting in one of the seats.

A very drunk man got on another time and proceeded to stare me down because I was sitting in the fron where old or disabled people are entitled to the seats if they are, in fact, on the bus. Then he grabbed the color of my shirt and told me to move. I didn’t and then I tild him the seats said old or disabled, not drunk or disabled. The bus driver kicked him off at the next stop because he kept swearing. It was lovely!

12

Hey! You’re not from Ohio originally, are you? Read my crazy bus story and see if it rings any bells…

Only time bus ridin’ for me was in Brazil. Tried to jump into the back door of an extremely overcrowded bus and when the doors went to shut I got my foot caught. Remained stuck for quite a while while the monkey that takes the fare tried to amputate my lovely foot by continuously jerking on the door. That will teach me to not learn, “Quit jerking on the door you moron!” in Portuguese.

Another time, on an “Excursion” to Paraguay, I got so hammered I hung out the window and hurled my lungs out. I didn’t remember doing it, and was pretty shocked to see 30 foot vomit stripes down the side of the bus the next day. I was kind of a “Hero” for the rest of the trip for reasons I didn’t fully understand. I mean, any fool can puke his guts out.

13

I was taking the 16 home from school (I’m in tenth grade) and I’m sitting in the back and these two guys get on the bus that i vaguely recognized from school, both in full attire, one of them with a rolled blunt in his mouth (not lit). He proceeds to ask me if I smoke. I said “No.” He pulled out a gun. As it turned out, it was one of those gun lighters. But it was a really big one. …Shut up.

14

One day I was getting onboard a greyhound bus in Brevard County to visit my Pa in Gainsville. This should normally be a 2-4 hour drive, but since I wasn’t riding on a straightticket, the bus had other destinations it had to acknowledge, and so the trips usually ran around 7-8 hours. I’ve met interesting characters on bus rides before. Druggies, people from far away lands, and shady characters who told humorous storys involving hookers at the back of the bus in whispers.

This particular ride was rife with interesting characters. The first three hours of the ride were normal enough. Boring, uncomfortably, the air pressure made me tired and unable to read comfortable, crowded, and hot. As the big guy two rows back proclaimed: “It’s so hot I’m about to show you boys what I’d do for a Klondike Bar!”. As we sped along at about 60 MPH, the passengers started becoming uneasy and confused. “The driver is on the wrong road”, they pattered amongst themselves, “we’re all going to be late by at least a few hours if we keep going this way.” they said. Nobody wanted this. After a while, a few brave souls journeyed to the front of the bus, and explained that it would be wise to turn around. She disregarded this advice. As if the few dozen people in the backseat weren’t annoyed enough that we were stuck with a driver who had no clue what she was doing, they became downright belligerent that she wasn’t listening to them. People were no longer speaking in hushes. Our driver didn’t know what the hell she was doing, and the passengers wanted her to know this. They did not care if she was offended in the process. Insults were dished out, people yelled, and others made snide remarks.

Had I not been distracted by a guy sitting across from me that was the spitting image if Robert Deniro, I would have paid more attention to the quaint maddness around me so that I could quote some of the outrage. After about twenty minutes of everybody giving the driver a hard time, she had had enough. The passengers had pushed their luck up 50 flights of stairs, through a hallway, into the well furnished boardroom, our of the window, and were about to witness it crashing down ontop of a clown; killing him. You could almost hear the air rushing to take the place of the sanity and patience this woman possesed before she was driven over the edge. She had snapped.

YOUSONUVABITCHESDON’TYOUASSHOLESHAVEANYMANNERSATALLI’MANICEGODDAMNPERSONANDYOUYOU’VEDRIVENOVERTHEEDGEYOULOWGRADEASSHATSI’MAGOFUCKINGMEDIEVALONYOASSESYOUPIGSHITSISWEARTOGODI’LLSTOPTHISBUSANDKICKTHESHITOUTOFEVERYONEOFYOUYOUFUCKINGASSHOLESHOWDAREYOUTELLMEHOWTODOMYFUCKINGJOBDIDN’TYOURMOMMA…

[Stan Marsh]Woah Dude![/Stan Marsh]

YOUASSHOLESHADTOKEEPPUSHINGMEOVERTHEEDGEEVERYBASTARDONTHISFUCKINGBUSANDHISGODDAMNEDEVILTWINFROMAPARRELLELUNIVERSEWELLIHOPEYOUBITCHESAREHAPPYYOUFUCKINGPIECESOFSHI…

All but the front of the bus grew quiet. Naturally. Most of the people taking the ride were shocked, some amused, and others scared shitless. Things had taken a turn for the weird. Robert Deniro didn’t like this, and started looking nervous.

YOUMOTHERFUCKERSBETTERSTAYTHEHELLAWAYFROMMEI’MTHEGODDAMNDRIVERONTHISBUSIMAKETHERULESANDIWILLPULLTHISBUSOVERTOTHROWYOUOUTYOUQUIVERINGCOWARDSNOWALLOFYOUSHUTTHEFUCKUPORELSEILL…

Oh Jesus…Honestly, this went on for at least an hour and a half, and people were becoming paranoid. This couldn’t be normal, right? Most people’s lungs would give out after twenty minutes at least. In retrospect, it’s rather impressive that she could carry on like this for so long, but nobody was amused at the time. They were annoyed, inconvenienced, and absolutely terrified.

“Ok, I used to be a cop in New York, and let me tell you, this lady is on fucking crack. Does anybody have a cell phone so I can call the police? The battery on mine is dead.”, said Deniro. A cop in New York? Priceless! Almost the entire ride I had been debating with myself wether or not to mention the similarities between him and the famous actor outloud, but couldn’t find justification for doing so, so I kept quiet. This was too much. Deniro and everyone else kept quiet while they searched for a phone as to not instigate the driver into killing them. He had to go through about 4 cell phones and 15 minutes before he had a cell with a fully charged battery in his hand.

“Hello? How am I doing? Not so good, and yourself? Great! I’ve got a problem, I’m on a greyhound bus going about 70 MPH on road I-75 and we’re all becoming of the belief that our driver is a crackhead of the highest order, and perhaps insane as well. Uh huh,…well listen…see? Tottally out of her Goddamn mind. Well I think we’re driving through Drawingablanktown soon. Can you meet us there? Super! Buh bye.”

The conversation that took place between Deniro and the cops was somewhere in the vacinity of that ballpark. Afterwards, a few people made calls to Greyhound demanding refunds, while letting the otherside listen to the racket in the background.

The deed had been done. Despite Deniro and Friends tm attempt at keeping everything hush hush, word that someone had called the cops eventually migrated north, and shat all over the bus driver. She about shit the foundation to a house.

YOUFUCKINGBASTARDSCALLEDTHECOPSICANTBELEIVEITDOYOUHAVEANYIDEAWHATTHAT’SGOINGTODOTOMYRECORDYOUUNCLEFUCKERSIWILLCHOPYOUINTOALPOANDFEEDYOUTOTHEANIMALSBEFORETHISDAYISTHROUGYOUBASTARDSWILLRUETHEDA…

Uuuuuuuneasyness. We arrived at the town, and the coppers set up a blockade. The driver was asked politely to get up, get out and take a drug test. After coming up clean, she was allowed back on the bus to finish driving us to our destinations. Everything become quiet. You could hear a pin drop. The air was so full of resentments and ill feelings you could have choked. People were shocked she was allowed to escort us, even after her display of crazyiness. How could they let her do that?

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful and ordinary. Hot, bothersome, crowded, boring…

The fun had ended too abruptyly. Eh, there’s my story :cool: .

15

You’ve already all heard the freedom-from-Jesus-Christ metro story, so here’s another one in the same vein: It’s the night before Pride and I’ve been out at Mascara: Le nuit des drags. I’m wearing sandals and purple toenails. I get on at Beaudry. Next stop, a pile of big gangbangers get on. One of them takes exception to my purple toenails. “Hey, you fuckin faggot, you got purple toenails, you fuckin faggot cocksucker faggot…”

“Yeah, I’m a faggot, and this is faggot weekend!”

I look around, and there are literally seven gay men sitting all around me. One of them looks nervously up at me, and asks, “Should we get involved?” YES!

So we sang an a cappella chorus of I Will Survive.

The gangbangers got off at the next station (“Get fucked up the ass, faggot!” “Well, that was the idea!”), and we all felt quite triumphant.

16

Damn, JoeSki, I don’t think anybody could top that one!

I ride the bus to work every day, on two routes, one of which passes through the ghetto. It’s mostly uneventful, but recently there’s been an unkempt guy who gets on and will talk to anybody. In his outside voice. One day this week, he recognized me and started talking to me from across the aisle, and the girl next to him got up and moved to another seat. And there’s the large, unattractive guy who reeks of cheap cigar smoke, who has a Southern accent so thick I can’t make out a word he says, who gets on and sits right by the door, in the seat the bus drivers privately refer to as “the idiot seat”. He makes indecipherable comments to the driver, and invariably falls asleep on the way downtown, drooling on his McDonald’s shirt. Around Thanksgiving, I was privy to hear the conversation of a couple of black ladies, one of whom was one of the largest humans I have ever witnessed… going on about having 13 kids…she wanted two more…and their various fathers…and about social services money she was getting…and all the food she was going to eat at the free buffet for poor people…and how she loved her some pecan pie…and how her boyfriend was a shithead… (one of my thoughts, among many others, was, “how did you find 13 men willing to have sex with you?”) And there’s the one time a girl got on the bus, who was covered in abscesses from shooting up drugs with dirty needles. All over her arms and legs, where the veins were. Lovely.

17

Why aren’t you coming to TrannaDope? :mad: :frowning:

(I got nothing like any of this. The bus routes I take are tame. The worst one I can think of is a woman who cussed out the bus driver for a few minutes before stomping off.)

18

La nuit des drags.

Apparently, my French grammar deteriorates after a certain hour.

19

On the GO from Guelph to Toronto, a somewhat inebriated, somewhat unsavory fellow began offering his “Crown Royal” (actually Jim Beam) to everyone on the bus who looked under 12, regardless of whether their parents were with them or not. If confronted, he would admonish them about trying to control their kid’s lives. The cops came and got him.

And although I was not on the bus for this incident, the perp in question was a somewhat-friend. He was one of these skinhead wannabes. He liked the attitude and style of the neo-nazi skinheads, but he really didn’t have the hate in him. We shared an enthusiasm for photography that cause our paths to cross frequently. Anyway, one day at the local grey-market army surplus, he bought himself a plugged up AK47. Then, on the bus ride home, enthralled with his new purchase, he poked it out the window of the back of the bus, and pretended to shoot pedestrians, saying “Bang, . . . . . . Bang, . . . . . . . . . Bang”. Didn’t even notice the bus stop, nor the 8 cruisers in front of and behind. Then everyone else on the bus quickly got off and the real guns came out.

20

JoeSki , so did you get to your destination? Did it turn out she was going the right way? Did everyone make it alive??