Campfyre Stories

So there I was, minding my own business, waiting for the bus. When he came, he told us he was running a little late - about 2 minutes.

He took off like a bat out of hell and passed by my sunglassed friend, who waved his arms as the bus cruised by. A few miles down the road, he caught up with the bus, explaining that he had gotten a ride.

About 3 stops later, the bus erupted into chaos as two women started screaming "YOU NEED TO PUT HER OFF THE BUS! SHE *HIT* ME! THREE FUCKING TIMES!" (We all, at this point, took our headphones off so we could hear better.) A third woman stood up, leaned over another passenger and started screaming, "WATCH YOUR MOUTH! THERE ARE CHILDREN ON THE BUS! THEY DON’T NEED TO HEAR THAT KIND OF LANGUAGE!"

Apparently, a woman wearing a backpack, who was standing, had been pushed by the movement of the bus into the woman sitting by her. The sitting woman was less upset by the backpack than the fact that the backpack woman hadn’t apologized or acknowledged that she had been knocking her.

The screaming went on for a minute or two when a man went to the front of the bus and tried to make peace. "Ladies, we want this bus to start moving. We all want to go home. Miss, please sit down. Let’s see if we can resolve this like adults." At which point the woman in the backpack started in on how it wasn’t her fault. "Lady, just SHUT. UP," said our peacemaker. Of course, at this point, it all started again, only this time there was an additional yell of "I’m going to be late for work!!" and when as the woman started yelling about how the kids didn’t need to hear that kind of language, they all started crying.

It was at this point that the driver got involved. Pulled the bus over and threatened to call the police or to put the foul-mouthed woman (who actually wasn’t directly involved at all) off the bus herself, or possibly the woman screaming about how we had to think of the children. "I have to report this to my supervisor, " he said and the whole bus groaned.

Thankfully, that didn’t take long and soon we were on the road again. The backpack woman got off a few stops later and people started putting their headphones back on and talking amongst themselves.  We thought it was over, but wait, there’s more.

A guy rang the bell for the stop and went to the back door.  While we were stopped at a red light, at an intersection before the bus stop, he started pushing on the door, which wouldn’t open, it only let off that infernal buzzing noise.  "Hey, man, open the door!  Back door!  Let me off!  I want to get off!"  The driver replied that the door would open when we actually got to the bus stop.  I guess the dude in the back didn’t hear him, because when we pulled over to the bus stop, he went to the front to get off.

"Yo, man, I wanted to get off.  You gotta open that back door."  The driver replied, "I can’t let you off in an intersection when I’m stopped at a red light.  You have to wait for the actual bus stop."  Guy:  "That’s fucked up, man…" and then he said something that I couldn’t hear.  But apparently the driver heard him because he JUMPED out of his seat and chased the guy out the door yelling "What did you say!?  What did you say to me???"

I was so glad that I was already planning to get off that bus early.  As my stop approached, I went up to my sunglassed buddy and said, "Heh.  Bet you’re glad you were able to catch the bus you missed, eh?"  He said, "You know, this is why I hate riding the bus," and shook his head. 

I shrugged.  "I guess, but you’ve got to admit, it makes a pretty good story."

It’s all about perspective.