That bitch sneered at me!

The BBQ Pit
1

So I’m on my way to run some errands. The car’s still in the shop (Remind me to kill me mechanic. The dirty fucker’s been giving me the run around for ages now… but that’s a different rant entirely. I digress) so I decide to hop on the bus. After glancing at some bus routes and schedules, I ascertain that the 22 line runs up and down El Camino, the only real street around here, which happens to be where I need to go. Excellent, so I mosey on down to the stop and hop on the bus. Everyone before me gets on, is friendly, says hi, she says hi back. When I got on, I smiled and said hi too, except she wasn’t so cordial back to me. The bitch sneered at me. The hell is her problem? Meh, no biggie, I just sit down and wait for my stop. The bus is heading north on El Camino, all is well… then the bus goes to the transit center and the driver calls, “Last stop!!” Juh? Eh? How can this be the last stop? This bus is supposed to go into the next town. I ask the bus driver if this bus line ends here. Silly question, I suppose since she just said this was the last stop. “I thought the 22 went straight up and down El Camino,” I said bewildered. “Not this one,” she told me, looking me up and down. Grr, what the hell?! Had I read the maps wrong? Why was she giving me such dirty looks? One, The 22 did go up tp El Camino, I was certain of this. Two, I didn’t like the way this cunt was looking at me. I ignored that this broad had known me for all of 2 seconds and was already being rude to me (usually people know me a lot longer before deciding they don’t like me), I began explaining to her that I knew the 22 went to where I was going, so I went to the bus stop, saw a bus that read 22, figured it was the right one, then got on, and somehow this is the last stop? “No, no, no,” she hissed, “you want the 22 Menlo Park. This is the 22 Palo Alto.”

:smack:

D’oh. All righty then, so apparently there are about a kazillion 22 lines that go up and down El Camino which wasn’t apparent to me from their web site. Maybe it’s apparent to someone else, or I glanced too hastily at the site, but whatever. I made a mistake, I got on the wrong bus, now I need to get back to El Camino. Unsure of how exactly I was supposed to do this, I inquired about this oh so elusive 22 MP line. Shoulda known the cow was gonna get an attitude again. “It comes to the transit center,” she replied, with her nose scrunched up, eying me foully. “They all do.” Why was her face all crunched together and why the HELL was she giving me that insulting stare? It was like she was going out of her way to be nasty to me. She was doing everything in her power to be sinister, short of outright name calling. Well I guess she told me what I needed to know, but did she have to be such a bitch? I should have asked her that, but rather, I just glared back at her, offered a semi-sincere “thanks much” and got off.

2

You’re forgetting that El Camino is nestled in the middle of a warp in the space-time continuim, where the even numbered street addresses jump back and forth from one side of the street to the other, and reset themselves without warning.

Be happy you got back alive.

-lv

3

Sometimes people are just nasty. I too got a bus driver with attitude. :frowning: I got on the bus and asked to buy my ticket of choice (Zone 1 and 2, two hour concession) and he mumbled something. I couldn’t hear and asked him if he couldn’t repeat himself, and got back some more mumbles. I finally figured out that he was asking for my concession card and made a little “ohhh” when I realised, and he mocked me! He said “ohhh” really sarcastically back to me.

But then when he sold me my ticket, he gave me a Zone 1 and 2 all day concession ticket. I told him (very politely) that I’d asked for a two hour ticket, and got an angry “Make up your mind!”

Excuse me? I knew that I’d said two hour because I never buy all day tickets, and plus, I had the exact change for a two hour ticket in my hand. So I snapped back at him: “I said two hour”. I contemplated ringing the bus company to complain about him, but a friend told me that she’d complained to that comapny before and they never respond. The experience still pisses me off.

4

I can relate. I hate bus drivers with a passion. I don’t know if it’s just our city’s “transit system” (which is a horribly poor excuse and doesn’t deserve the name “public transportation”) or if it’s indicative of bus drivers everywhere, but the ones here seem to be just plain jerks. I have had nothing but bad experiences with them.

Like MOL, I’ve had to take the bus occasionally when my car has been broken down, the bus drivers are bad enough then.

But the WORST one I ran across was one winter when I was in my own vehicle.

(slight hijack)

The bus was one car back from me. I was on a slight hill waiting for the guy at the top of the road (two cars ahead of me) to make it onto the main road. But the poor guy had an old classic hot rod and was totally sliding on the ice and couldn’t get out.

Most of us patiently waited while he maneuvered back and forth and tried to get over toward where he’d have more traction. Amazingly this is one incident (that of people getting stuck on sheer ice trying to get out onto main roads) where other drivers will be patient. I mean, it’s not like the guy did it on purpose, and it happens quite a lot.

A few moments into the incident, someone from behind me starts honking. Long, loud, insistent honks. Unrelenting.

I look behind me, but it’s dark, so I can’t really see the guy behind me, so I get out of the car and go up to the guy waiting behind me.

I say “hey! that guy is trying, he’s stuck, why are you honking”? He says “it’s not me, it’s the bus”.

So I walk back to the bus, and tell the driver “hey, some guy is sliding on the ice up there, he’s trying, but it’s taking him a bit to get some traction”.

I figured maybe the drivers couldn’t see what was going on, and perhaps thought someone was just being slow off the mark.

The driver tells me “shut the F*** up, Bitch, I can do what I want, and anyway, I’m just trying to help”!!!

I glared at him, tell him he canNOT use language like that with me, stepped back, looked at the number of the bus, noted the time and went back to my car. I immediately called the bus company and complained.

HELPING? How was honking over and over HELPING? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, where do they GET these idiots?

Oh, and that’s not the least of my experience with bus drivers. I’m not surprised in the least by MOL’s story of the sneering bus driver.

I’m sure there are lots of nice bus drivers out there, (but I haven’t met any yet, so if anyone out there reading this is a nice bus driver), let me reiterate, I know not EVERY bus driver is bad.

5

Remember, some people wouldn’t be happy if you hung them with a brand new rope.

MOL, living in Palo Alto, you are on the extreme edge of the 22’s route. Next time, head south on the line for a much longer range and selection of shopping centers. Try disembarking at San Antonio Road, near Chef Chu’s. Walk east on the north side of San Antonio until you see a big Firestone tire dealership across from Sears. Next door is one of the absolute finest charcuteries in the entire bay area. Dittmer’s Wurst Haus has an entire wall covered in First Prize awards and certificates of merit for their products.

Ask for Mark and allow him to tour you through their selection. A blind man could shop there and walk out happy. It is nearly impossible to make a bad choice. They smoke all of their own sausages and make their own patés as well. If you are fond of fine cheeses, please investigate the Oakville Grocery in Stanford Plaza. It has one of the finest selections in the entire bay area.

6

Plug Plug Duly noted, Zenster. Next time I’m headed south, I’ll stop by.

7

You mean you didn’t know that some vehicles are equipped with the Magic Horn of Traffic Problem Solving[sup]TM[/sup] which, if applied vigorously enough, restarts stalled cars up to five car lengths ahead of it, imparts superhuman driving skills to drivers within a half block radius, clears ice, snow and other traffic obstacles for the next mile, and (most importantly) makes the driver of any vehicle possessing it the KING OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE?

I understand that it’s standard equipment on most BMW and Mercedes models and is an optional extra on most other luxury vehicles, but can be installed aftermarket on almost any vehicle if the driver is willing to pay the necessary fees and taxes.

8

I think I can top any of these stories. Some years back we had a bus driver who used to glare at anybody getting on his bus and I mean drug-induced, paranoia glare. The best was when he started reading while driving. My mother called the cops and we didn’t see him for a long time and when he did come back, he was a totally different person. I don’t know if it was drug rehab or he got medication he needed, but he was a lot calmer.

9

I have some bus driver stories myself. Here’s a few:

The day after a bad snow storm, the buses were all way behind schedule. Our driver screamed “Come on! Come on!” to everyone trying to get on the bus over the snowbanks. At every stop.

One day I asked for a transfer. Four times, I asked for a transfer and was ignored. So I reached for a transfer and the driver grabbed my wrist really hard.

I had a driver stop in the middle of her route and get out at Dunkin’ Donuts. She didn’t even ask us passengers if we wanted anything.

My son’s daycare is across the street from the local mental health agency. The bus stop is right in front of the agency. I had a driver ask me if I was going to the “crazy house”. I wrote a letter to the director of the bus company and cc’d the Mental Health advocate over that one, but only heard back from the Mental Health advocate.

10

Hey, you’re just lucky he didn’t send you to the moon, Alice.

Bang. Zoom.

11

Actually, I’ve been pretty pleased and impressed with the bus drivers here in NYC. Most of them are cordial (a few exceptions) and they have to maneuver these long wide buses through ridiculously tiny holes in double-parked traffic. I’ve been a nervous passenger en route to the airport or other important appointment on more than one occasion and watched them thread a bus through holes that leave inches to spare and have to be negotiated while the bus is changing angles as it goes.

OK, I’ve a few surly drivers who take an attitude when you ask them to alert you when you’re getting close to Hooziswhats Road that you’ve never been to before.

Mostly, though, they beat hell out of the surburban bus drivers on Long Island.

12

:smiley:

GOOD one Lurkmeister!!!

13

Ooh! Ooh! I have an inexplicably rude bus driver story!

I got on a bus to get to work one night, with a (bagged) submarine sandwich which I had picked up on the way.

The driver stopped me and said, “You can’t take that on the bus.” I said, “It’s my lunch-- don’t worry, I wouldn’t eat on a bus.” His tone got really hostile then, and he said “Whaddya you mean, you wouldn’t eat on a bus?” I wasn’t sure why this needed any elaboration, but volunteered: “Well, because it’s dirty.” Now he’s shouting: “Whaddya mean, ‘dirty’? This is where I work.” “Well, yeah, I didn’t mean to offend you, but you know, hundreds of people move through this space every day. It’s bound to be dirty.” “That’s not my fault. People are dirty.”

A long exchange followed in which he insisted that my not wanting to eat on his bus was somehow an attempt by me to insult or demean him. The bus remained motionless during this, and the guy was getting apoplectic.

He wanted me to throw my sandwich in the garbage before we were going to go anywhere. After he accepted that I wasn’t disposed to eat it on the bus, he wanted me to get off because I had insulted him by suggesting the bus was dirty. (Did I mention this bus ran along urine-soaked Hastings Street?)

The whole episode seemed pretty bizarre to me, since he first seemed angry because he thought I was going to eat on the bus, and then seemed angry and abusive because I wouldn’t.

After what seemed like a long time, he let it go and I took my seat.

Then, when my stop approached, he ignored the bell and drove past it. When I went up to ask him to stop the bus, he said “I’m behind schedule because of the hassle you gave me, and I’ve got to make the time back. Sorry.” Now I’m getting really pissed, because I’m going to be late for work. He sailed by two more stops, including one that had someone waiting at it. (At that time of night, the bus came every half-hour.) He finally let me off quite aways up, when another guy needed to get off. I’m glad it worked out that way, because I was able to get the guy’s number which came in handy when I reported the driver.

I suspect he was either doing speed or cocaine - he had that kind of a twitchy sweat going on.

I don’t know if he got fired, but I sure as hell never saw him on the #22 again. (Maybe #22 is a magic number for psychotic drivers, MOL?)

14

My favorite driving game in the South Bay Area was trying to play the “Are we on the El Camino?” It had so many names. I feared and loathed that highway because I never knew if I was on the right road. Or was that The Alameda?

Anyway, yeah. Evil people suck.

15

I’ve only just started catching buses in Melbourne this year because previously we lived closer to trams/trains. I must be really lucky or something because all our bus drivers have been really nice so far - except for one incident.

It was one of our really, really hot Melbourne days (in the high 30 degrees Celcius range). Our bus that day was pretty old and didn’t have air con. The bus driver decided he wasn’t going to drive the whole bus route, rather he stopped about two stops from my stop and said he wasn’t going any further - it was just to bloody hot. I went up the front and explained to him that I was (at the time) 6 months pregnant and really didn’t feel up to walking the rest of the way home. Could he see his way to driving to my stop and then finding a shady place to rest. No way, not on your life, it was all just too much for him. I even offered to get him an icy drink from my fridge if he would just drive those extra two stops. Nothing, nada. I had to get out and walk.

Once I got home and recovered from the walk I rang the bus company and told them the whole saga. Havn’t seen that driver on my bus route since.