On the bus going into town a car went past with an unusual paint job, by unusual I mean hand painted monstrosity! The person obviously decided to use a four inch paint brush and some surplus paint he had laying around. The base color was turquoise with white and grayish wavy stripes painted all over the car. Nice!

Then I saw a hybrid car that had a rear license plate frame that had a red LED animated sign on it. Like stores have in their windows with messages scrolling along it, but small on the bottom of the frame.

Not sure what it said as it whizzed past, maybe something like “If you can read this you are too close.”

But I thought it could be distracting, someone could see it and speed up and get closer in an effort to read the message. I know I wanted to urge the bus driver to speed up so I could read it, “Dude hurry up I have to get the details for a blog post.”

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Coming home on the bus we were on the freeway approaching the off ramp. There was a roar of a motorcycle and a guy whizzed past standing up on his bike doing a wheelie at break neck speed.

Yeah really great, dumb ass!

There goes a future organ donor methinks.

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On the bus a guy gets on every morning who some people have mentioned suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. He doesn’t manifest swearing or spitting like some sufferers can but he has the violent tics and outbursts of grunts and moans. If it isn’t tourette’s then maybe some similar neurological problem.

He only gets on for a few stops but people are obviously uncomfortable with him on the bus. They stare and look as he moves and grunts, some people even move seats. It must be very frustrating for him and I cannot even imagine having to live with such a condition. Even worse dealing with people’s reactions.

Makes complaining about those little niggly things I have to deal with totally insignificant.

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Coming home on the bus, a woman was at the back of the bus. She was calling someone on her cell phone, apparently she was trying to hook up with them down town and had gotten on the wrong bus.

Maybe the phone connection wasn’t very good because she was loud, very loud, she kept saying she had to get off the bus and meet the person she was talking to. She was getting louder and louder, to the point that she was almost shouting at the top of her voice;

“Vern, Vern, meet me on 2nd ave, I’m on the wrong bus.”

A couple sitting behind me were commenting and hoping she would hurry up and get off the bus.

I’m thinking; Dang woman, you;re shouting so loud Vern doesn’t need the cell phone he can probably hear you shouting!

There was almost a spat of applause when she finally got off the bus.

I wonder if some people don’t realize with modern phone technology you can virtually whisper into a cell phone and the person on the other end can hear you perfectly.

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I don’t drive and am used to commuting on buses, the worst thing is being subject to adverse weather. My job is good in that when there is inclement weather they will close as a snow day or have a delayed opening.

This morning I looked out the window and there was a light dusting but nothing too bad I thought. I walked down the hill to the bus stop, a lot of ice on the roads. The bus has to come down an even steeper hill, but I hoped it would make it.

After almost an hour of waiting I decided maybe the buses weren’t running, to get to another route I’d have to traverse some hills, I am standing there all bundled up but still freezing. A young guy at the stop is wearing just a thin hoodie and is shivering like he is about to freeze solid, he is messing with a large video iPod so I assume he could afford a better coat!

My extremities are all about to break off, my feet are like blocks of ice. I decided to start texting my work mates to take my mind off the cold. They all drive or use van pools or the train. The fact I have to take my glove off to text doesn’t make much sense!

They start texting me back that I am crazy and to take care.

Text messages: “It is so cold it can freeze the nuts off a brass monkey.”

“I’m colder than Frosty’s tits!”

“Nuts warming over a open fire, is it frostbite when your fingers turn black?”

“Okay, no worries I am wearing black gloves!”

“The brass monkey needs the Super glue.”

“Cannot feel my fingers, toes or nuts, wait, I can feel my nuts, mmmmmmmm.”

I definitely don’t envy the people who live in places that get a lot colder weather than we do. Trust me to marry a woman from Seattle!

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Sitting at the front of the bus a guy sat down on the bench seat in front of me. He hangs his travel coffee mug over the handrail in front of me by its handle. I immediately envisaged the bus going over a bump and the mug swiveling over the rail and ending up upside down over my lap, if the top came off I’d be doused in some nice hot coffee.

Not likely to have happened by my mind just explored the possibility, if it did happen, two things would’ve happened. I would have screamed like a little girl and “whapped” the features of the guy’s face with the back of my hand.

Luckily, there was no screaming or “whapping”.

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I have been taking a different bus route and bus into town from work, drops me off at my second stop so less walking in this cold weather. This means a whole new cast of bus characters to get to know and write about, found one almost immediately.

I got on the bus and noticed a guy held up a copy of the local newspaper to the driver instead of a bus pass. The previous day I thought I saw him holding a library card and showing it to the driver.

Apparently all his regular drivers are used to this and he never shows his actual bus pass. He always uses some other card he has on him, something different each day. If he has no card then he has used a fishing magazine, a dandelion and a leaf.

Not sure how this started, but everyone gets a kick out of it.

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I’m on the bus, I am in an aisle seat, I prefer the window seat. We get to the transit center and a guy opposite in the window seat gets up and gets off. I slide out of my seat and into the window seat opposite. I noticed movement behind me as I did this, someone else had the same idea as me but I beat him to the seat.

I heard him mutter something under his breath as he went back to his own aisle seat, sounded like “Bastard.”

I thought What?

I turned and stared at him, he was staring at me and we locked stares. I held the stare and looked into one of his eyes with both of mine, works great on kids and animals. He suddenly found something outside the bus window to stare at and started to fidget in his seat.

Yeah that’s right. Cower under the withering stare of doom.

Oh, I am easily amused.

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