No one likes taking the bus. No one wants to be there, it never goes directly where you want to go, it stops too much, you have to pay to be on it and it’s generally full of social outcasts and miscreants, which is why when we’re forced to be on a bus we try our best to not be bothered by anyone. Sadly it doesn’t always work out that way.
I take the bus only in the most dire circumstances, where each and every time is worse than every other time such that every bus ride is and always be the worse us ride you have ever been on.
The Hobo
You know this guy is on the list so let’s just get it out of the way. Hobos, for whatever reason, take the bus. But for the love of God why? Where is that hobo going? Where was he that he thought “I better panhandle until I can get across town in a circuitous manner so that I can do ____.” A hobo literally has nothing to do ever. No one else can ever truly say that. Even when you’re five your mom expects you to clean up your toaster strudel mess and go to bed at bed time. As a lazy ass college student you need to roll out of bed at least once a semester to stay enrolled. As a retiree you need to wash the sidewalk out front of your house. But a hobo? You don’t even need to move to shit. You can stay in the same place literally all day and you will let no one down, not even yourself. The only other things on earth that can live like a hobo are plants. And no one gives them money. Hobos are goddamn supermen.
But they don’t need to take the bus. And when they do that’s when shit gets real. How can I have any pride in myself when I am travelling with a guy who just admitted he can shit his pants and still consider the day a success? The moment I share an experience with a person who may store things under his balls for safe keeping is the moment I fail at whatever it is I’m doing.
The Family of 10
FUCKING BIRTH CONTROL AMERICA. That shit is so idiotic...why the hell do you need 10 kids?...........
It’s horribly arrogant to suggest that families shouldn’t go out and ride the bus, but families shouldn’t ride the bus. 5 is the limit at the very most. The moment you allow a genetic circus act to board the bus, you set the stage for an interactive theatre of discomfort for every other person on that bus as the yelling and insanity begin as though the family thinks they somehow entered the bus at a pan-dimensional bus stop where they were the only people in existence and are now accountable to no one for their hillbillian hijinks and lack of decorum. The moment one child starts running to the back of the bus as though a high fructose ADD supplement was being administered by the miscreants back there, the matriarch starts barking like a basset hound and then all bets are off as the bus and the people on it become the world’s most ghetto amusement park.
The Shopper
Hey old lady, been to Wal Mart have you? Bought a case of Ensure, a 25lb bag of small dog kibble and a wet/dry vac? Sure, sit next to me, it’s not like these seats are designed to barely roomy enough for two progeria patients abreast, I’m sure we can find some room around my shins for your rolly cart full of potted geraniums.
For whatever reason, the Shopper purchased an excess amount of whole wheat bread but couldn’t bother to get glasses that would help with the depth perception necessary to understand how the aisle in a bus can’t fit all their shit and allow others to move forward and backward in a way that doesn’t mimic the movements of panicked wildlife trying to navigate the jungle canopy.
The Needless Neighbor
Like the Shopper but lacking the extra baggage, the Needless Neighbor is the same kind of person who uses the urinal next to you at a bar when none of the others are occupied and will fart silently next to you at a wedding and, at the moment everyone notices it, will look at you and shrug noncommittally. Is it an apology or is it a subtle way to blame you? Who cares, just fuck off you intrusive bastard.
There may be a dozen empty seats on the bus, but for whatever reason this delightful soul wants to sit next to you. And because it’s a bus, that means your thighs, arms and an uncomfortable portion of midsection will be touching. If this were prison you’d only be this close to someone when they were inside you. And they would be in prison because you’re practically in one another’s lap.
The CHUD Flirt
Buses attract pretty girls the way putting googly eyes and a tiny wig on a turd and carrying it around downtown will attract pretty girls. Does that mean no girls take the bus? Sadly, no. It means CHUDs do. By now you should be as familiar with CHUDs as you are with Hitler AIDS, both are scourges of our modern age and both will wilt your willy like a pot of boiling water.
CHUDs frequent the bus and that’s cool, but beware of the CHUD flirt. The CHUD flirt refuses to sit, and will instead stand at the front of the bus and chat to the driver, the driver being the most authoritative and successful man she’s been in contact with all week. She will play with her straw-like hair and shift her weight from one bruised leg to another in a playful manner and because it’s at the front of the bus you will watch it. You will watch it as though the most unfortunate bargain bin porno were about to unfold before you, full of coffee stained undergarments and sexy names like Earl and Gertrude. Goddamn it all, you’ll watch it until your stop comes along.
She will meld giggling with a hoarse, emphysema-esque cough and try to be cute but, like our googly eyed turd, she is about as cute as a googly eyed turd.
Try to look out the window......
Goodnight World.
-stmichael
