Bus Tales » 11

Stumble and Bob

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:14:39 +0000

This happened to a friend of mine about 10 years ago or so, but it’s worth posting. He was on a bus in South Minneapolis on his way to a job interview when a stumbling drunk of a man pulls himself onto the bus, swings around on the pole and sits down w/o paying. The bus driver looks over at him and the man says “I’ll get you in a minute.” The bus pulls off and the guy puts on his headphones and starts head-bobbing to the music and at one point yells out “Yeah!”

A few stops later, another driver comes on the bus, taking over for the original driver who exits the bus. The bus pulls away. Somehow this guy notices and starts asking the new driver for a transfer (the guy still hasn’t paid). The driver explains she can’t do so. He continues to argue with her until she pulls over and calls the transit police.

My friend, who’d been watching the whole thing (and who was in a hurry to get to the interview) stood up, walked to the front, told the guy “You didn’t even pay to get on! Get off the bus now!” and turned to the driver, who was still on the phone and told her that he hadn’t paid. The guy pulls himself up on the pole, swings around, and exits the bus. The driver thanked him and told the police that a nice rider took care of it.

“I just like to have FUN” guy

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:26:44 +0000

So the other day I was riding the 11. It was rush hour, probably around 5 p.m., so as you can imagine, the bus was fairly full. We were nearing the MIA when a man got on the bus. At first I thought he was vision impaired because he had on sunglasses and I could see he was carrying some sort of stick. Upon further investigation I realized the sunglasses were throw backs from the 80′s (sort of visor like and really cheap) and the “stick” was actually a broom and dust pan combo.

He also had with him a basketball, a pink boom box, and a party whistle. He got on the bus and was talking about parties or something… then he’d blow this whistle fairly loudly. One passenger asked him if he was drunk (a fair question in my opinion) at which he scoffed and responded, “I have been sober for 11 years. I just really like to have FUN!” Then he blew his whistle again.

This continued for a few more blocks until he became agitated with the rest of us on the bus. He pulled the chord and got off the bus, but not before shouting at all of us… “YOU’RE NO FUN, YOU GUYS SUCK!” and loudly blowing his whistle. Man I love the bus!

Smelly Red Jacket Guy

admin — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:42:29 +0000

I ride the 11C from downtown every weekday. If I ride the 5:04 bus, 9 times out of 10, a 50′s-ish gentleman (stretch of the term, really) inevitably sits with me, should I have happened to find an open seat. This wouldn’t bother me normally, but this particular guy in a red jacket, is a smoker, who has obviously just put out his cigarette the moment the bus opens the door. (let’s call him “Smelly Red Jacket Guy”)

Not only does he reek, giving me a grand, nauseous headache, but he proceeds to read the paper. Again, this wouldn’t be so bad, but unlike normal people who minimize the size of the paper whilst reading in a tight space, Smelly Red Jacket Guy has to have the paper open – greatly invading what little personal space I have relegated to me on a bus.

To Smelly Red Jacket Guy: Sit with someone else. You’re giving me a headache.

Kid gets STD from…

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:19:50 +0000

I was listening to this older women telling/complaining to the driver how all these kids who share dirty headphones on those music devices is what is causing the spread of STD’s and AIDS and other diseases. She thought all the music companies should provide wipes to clean off the headphones as people share them.

I can see the blog headlines now…. “Kid gets STD from placing a dirty used Headphone in his ear”

Foundation stains

admin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:59:10 +0000

Was riding the 11 when this crazy obviously drugged up woman was woken up by her boyfriend before their stop. She proceeded to attempt to groom herself and put on about 2 pounds of makeup (it wasn’t even close to being enough to cover all the sores on her face) and make a few swipes with a brush in her ratted out hair.

However while putting on some foundation, she spilled about half the contents of the container in her hand and proceeded to rub the excess on an empty seat neat to her. The two finally got off a few blocks later to the relief of most of the bus. But a few stops later the bus started to get really crowded and a few people were warning people not to sit in the seat with all the foundation rubbed on it.

Most people left the seat alone, but finally one woman in a really nice white dress got on and just wouldnâ€™t believe that there was anything wrong with the seat and put her hand on it and said it was dry so she thought the people warning her were lying or something. So she sat down on the seat. She got off the bus before some of the people who had witnessed both incidents had gotten off and we all had a good laugh as we could clearly see the foundation stains dress.

Revenge of the rejected

admin — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:45:37 +0000

I was commuting to work as usual, when a small group of people boarded the bus, and the last gal to get on was suddenly harrassed by the bus driver. He told her that he wouldn’t drive the bus if she got on. She got on, paid and sat down up front and he continued to repeat himself. The bus went silent because none of us knew what on earth was going on.

The girl told the bus driver that she wasn’t getting off the bus and just because she wasn’t interested in dating him, he couldn’t kick her off. Apparently these two knew each other…. the rest of the bus started to snicker and giggle. The girl put her headset on to ignore the driver, and the bus began to move forward… that is until the bus driver got on the microphone and started screaming at the girl to turn her headphones down because they were too loud and disrupting his driving (which truly wasn’t the case).

What a bizarre experience…