On being stuck next to nuts and eccentrics on public transport..

Here is a groundbreaking blog to mark my 23rd birthday, dedicated to Wimmy

 A recent encounter with a harmless but equally brainless English lad aboard a bus to Coventry made me ponder the issue of weirdos on on public transport.

I am sure that many, many people will have come across the same thing at one time. If you use busses or trains regularly you are eventually guaranteed to encounter someone who is very hard to sit beside.

One of my earliest such experiences was taking a bus home from school when I was about 13. My parent´s home is quite near a psychiatric hospitality and some patients are given day release because they are reasonably stable.

A young, attractive woman across the aisle from me sat quietly and showed no immediate signs of lunacy. Looking at her, I could never have predicted what would happen next..

She put a sock (ordinary sock, not a puppet) on her hand, pointed it at herself and started saying in a loud, aggressive voice, "You're ugly, you're useless, you're pathetic" over and over again

I can only guess this lady was heading back for dinner at the hospital.

Why are encounters with strange people a hazard on public transport? Because most of the time you are in close proximity to these people and there's no escape until you arrive at your destination.

When I was in Perth catching a ferry back from work, a young woman with the beginnings of a mono brow, a trashy track-suit ensemble and a cap came and sat right next to me, in spite of a litany of empty seats throughout the ferry. Almost immediately she launched into a tirade about men. In her nasal, ocker accent she said; "You know my boyfriend just left me and..."

Approximately what the girl looked like

 After about a minute I said. "Excuse me, it's very strange to just sit next to someone and randomly bombard them with your problems."

She seemed a bit taken a back, mumbled an apology and moved away for about 47 seconds before boomeranging back.

"I think you´re Irish? You have blue eyes.. Irish have blue eyes. I met an Irish guy once..¨

I glanced across the ferry looking for a helpful face only to see a group of people who worked for the same company as me laughing and winking as if to say "She's your problem buddy"..

When we arrived at the port she ran to some unsuspecting guys sitting having coffee and started another breathless account of her life.

I'm going to assume this girl was off her nut. I didn't know how to handle her. I could have just said ¨Leave me alone! but that would have been harsh. Extremely un-receptive body language, it seems, does not deter your hardcore annoying bus commuter.

 The inspiration for this piece was aboard a bus from Bristol to Coventry.  He was about my age, wearing a smart looking suit, sporting a slick hair cut and looking fairly bored.



I think I´d slip into a coma if I was stuck next to Palin

From his attire I assumed he was a businessman of some sort. I offered my paper to him read, which he accepted and we started a conversation.

It took me all of thirty seconds to start to wonder.. ¨WTF?¨ 

He tried telling me what he did for a job but the way he went about ït was incomprehensible. He pulled words from the air at random. Mangling sentences, decapitating predicates and annihilating grammar. A bit like George Bush or Sarah Palin.

I ascertained that he was in some sort of government work program and I can only assume that he dropped out of school early.

His accent was understandable and the individual words were legible but what he was saying just didn't make sense:

"So, news is always happening, all the time, you know? It's just like crazy how stuff is always happening if you think about it.."

Words plopped from his mouth like dung from arse.

I'm pretty sure this guy wasn't drunk or high and he wasn't mentally ill so my conclusion is he might have been a few cans short of a six pack.

 I felt like I had to explain things to him like he was seven years old. I told him that the settlement of New Zealand and Australia were very different (he asked if the first settlers were convicts) and some of the first Europeans to arrive in New Zealand were missionaries.

"So they were on a mission then?" he said.

I abandoned conversation shortly after this with the old open your book routine.. But sometimes a book or music can´t save you.

 Usually headphones are a barrier to unwanted communication, right? Well not in this case.

Last year I was on a bus from Dunedin to Christchurch. It was quite empty and we were some way into the six hour journey. I was listening to Daft Punk and a woman who looked to be about 30 came over and asked if she could listen to my iPod.

Seriously, who the hell does that?

She was holding a bottle of budget cola in her hand which her and her boyfriend (who had a died red mullet and wore a sleeveless denim jacket) were swigging back the whole trip. By the calibre of their conversation, they were not the freshest french fries. No more than a few words would pass without an f bomb hurled in.

The woman had violated the basic "please leave me in peace" which wearing headphones implies. If someone needed help, sure, but this was just weird. So I let her listen to my music (frankly taken aback) and she starts bopping to the music and says ¨I love this song.¨

I did feel a bit sorry for her cause she seemed nicer than her boyfriend, who was clearly a bit of a bastard.

He called across the aisle "I hope he knows that you're with me".. I felt like yelling "As if I'd be interested" but thought it would be wasted breath. She returned to her seat and a massive domestic ensued.. He was calling her a fat whore, she argued back but started to cry and I promptly moved to the front of the bus. For the remainder of the trip they were arguing and the rest of the bus sat in quiet compliance.

Clearly this is not one of life's major issues but if this ever happens to you. You will try to think of a way to get away as quickly as possible. 

Would be curious if anyone has any crazy people stories to share?