Altercations in Public Transport, a rant in three parts.

.I.

A few weeks ago, myself and the person who would shortly after that take up the role of Boyfriend were on the last bus into Amsterdam from my tiny place of residence. Well, the town is tiny, my house has an ample size. It needs to, as it has to accommodate my considerable and slow-moving bulk alongside the petite but fast-moving one of Housemate (she doesn’t think she is small, but she is, it’s that simple).

Anyway, we were on the last bus into town on a Saturday night, and at one of the stops a small group of people got on the bus, or attempted to get on the bus. Attempted, because one of these people was carrying a can of drink. Now, the pictograms stating that it is not allowed to do this have long since been taken from the busses in Holland, but the driver still decides who is allowed on his big yellow-green contraption. And in this particular case, the entire group was, except for the can.
Now what this particular can had ever done to the driver, I have no knowledge of, but I wager it had less to do with the can than it had to do with the incredible stupidity and horrendous arrogance emanating from the girl holding on to it.
This is all nice and well, of course, except the blonde bint refused to toss the can, or drink it really fast and get on the bus. Fair enough, get out of the bus, and stop whining, I would say.
Not her though… nooooo… The very idea of not whining would not have entered this young women’s brain had it hacked its way in there with an ice-pick and a blowtorch.
So she whined. And the driver refused. And then, to top off a situation already fraught with tension and aggressiveness (from me) her friend, who I am going to be referring to in my mind as Sluttana Slutford, decided to be diplomatic.
Now I like diplomacy. It is after all the art of saying “nice doggy” while looking for a rolled up newspaper, but in this particular case this girl was saying “nice doggy” to a canine who had it’s own rolled up newspaper, a large one. With wheels.
Also, el Slutto had about the diplomatic savvy of a drunk hyena trying to weasel his way into a high class country club by insulting the bellboys.
Predictably, the charm offensive failed, and the blonde bimbo still had not taken even a sip of her stupid drink, and the driver shut down the bus.
Let’s all say this: He shut down the bus.
MY BUS!
By now we had been standing there about twenty minutes, all late and annoyed, and now this person had caused a bus full of people to completely abandon all pretence of going further. Understandably, there were those who had something to say about this.
Soon the cries of “just toss the can or piss OFF” started to be heard from the back of the bus, whereas Sluttana had started to be noticeably aggressive towards the poor bus driver.

Now I do not directly agree with his stance, after all, the people seemed not all that drunk, and the chance of the can of drink being forcibly moving through the bus on its’ own seemed remote. But the simple fact of the matter is that he has the deciding “captain of the ship” like vote in the matter.
In the end, fearing they might be pummelled to death by the Saturday night crowd, the stupidity-team left the bus, shouting they’d wait for the next one (which would be along in about six hours) and we continued.
..II..

Not too long ago Housemate and I were on the bus back home. At some point in time I heard something behind me that sounded suspiciously like “All faggots must die” Now I hardly ever jump to conclusions, and wanted to hear a bit more about what was transpiring those few rows behind me. As I had just kissed Boyfriend goodnight when entering the bus, it seemed likely that this comment had been spurred by my actions. Housemate however was seethingly jumping into the fray as soon as she realized the topic of conversation.
Well, jumping into the fray… Housemate and I both believe that everybody has a right to their opinion, and I myself have at some point in time made the point that at least 95% of all homosexuals would be better of with a good dose of death in their diets.
But more important than the point made is the way a point is made, and this person was making his point at an incredibly loud tone of voice, and peppered with expletives. It was this, more than anything, which annoyed Housemate.
So she turned around, and politely asked him to either speak a tad softer, or speak in a way more suitable for public transport.
No go. Apparently “young people” nowadays (us) would have had a difficult time making themselves understood in whatever backwater dump this person grew up. The good man insisted that he had a right to his opinion (true) and that we should move to the back of the bus if we couldn’t take it (false)
Housemate kept politely trying to convince him that she did agree with the right to his opinion, but that she would like him to tone it down a second.
This obviously escalated. He started speaking louder and spouting more political blatant incorrectness, Housemate responded in polite but scathing fashion, I myself put my two cents in wherever I saw an option.
At one point, I turned back facing the front of the bus again and put forth to the ether my opinions on the situation, using, at one point, the word “shit”.
This prompted our friendly neighbourhood troglodyte to tell Housemate to tell her boyfriend to mind his language. This obviously after he had spent 15 minutes hosing us down with spittle and extremely right winged stupidity, so one might imagine the effect this had on both Housemate and me.

So I turned round, and told the good man that I was not her boyfriend, but that I am usually my boyfriends boyfriend. Housemate turned round, and told him that he could always sit further down the bus if this really bothered him.
He didn’t, but did get off at the next stop. Regretfully, we will never know if this was his actual stop or that he decided to wait for the next bus, but one can hope.
He did however leave us with a lot of unused adrenaline. Housemate had just about build up her battle aura, and I was getting well ready to use the “and listen now, you horrid little man” voice, all to no avail. So we spent the rest of the bus trip quietly seething, and muttering to each other about the state of the world.
Coming home Housemate did a nice rendition of the word “fuck” at the top of her voice on our little square, but one can imagine this hardly did anything for her frazzled disposition.

…III…

This weekend I was taking my usual bus home, and using my time talking to Boyfriend on the phone, when I noticed a young boy entering the bus, carrying his dog.
Now when I say carrying, this might call forth an image of a young boy, cradling a small dog in his arms, shielding it from the danger of outside and the inherent risks a bus poses to small dogs.
Wrong.
He carried that little dog as I would a rugby ball, he had the dog by it’s doggy shoulders, carrying it at arms stretched, and swinging it every which way (this is hard to do with a rugby ball, but I am sure I managed). The dog looked absolutely terrified, and seemed to be in some pain. I was about to say something when he put the dog on a seat and sat down, so I figured it was fine for now. Soon enough he was joined by people I assume were his brother and mother, judging from the striking similarity in god awful unattractiveness.
Boys started talking, one of the two, I’m betting the youngest, in such a volume and pitch that my glasses started vibrating so badly I was fearing for my eyes. Boyfriend lost a couple of drinking glasses just having the phone line open at the unfortunate moment the boy had just inhaled and saw something of interest.
And boy did these guys saw things of interest.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think Amsterdam, and especially the southern part, is a very beautiful city, and when one takes his eyes upwards a bit to take a look at the architecture even more so. I myself tend to admire the small streets and the particular schools of design on view.
But these guys would’ve been amazed and most likely a little frightened at your average garden variety rock, judging by the things they exclaimed excitedly at. I swear at one point one of them noticed his own hand, and thusly prompted a barrage of squeals and shrieks not heard since 1478, when a mouse was doing backstrokes in the ornamental fountain in the seraglio of wonky lord Harold Pier-Habsburg, collector of peacocks and sexual deviant, known to only get his rocks of with castrato’s during concerto’s for violin and flute.
Gods but these kids were loud.

Now it is rarely my place to admonish others on the subject of whelp-rearing, but when Boyfriend had cleaned up the splinters and asked me what that infernal noise was, I had very little choice but to explain to him the situation I found myself in. The mother obviously heard me, and started throwing me some dirty looks. Not that I cared, she was throwing them the wrong way, after all, as they should have gone to her monstrous offspring.
They luckily got off before long, but regretfully not before putting the dog on the bus floor in front of the door, and then yanking it by it’s chain down the three high steps on to the pavement. Had I gotten off at the same stop they did, I’d have exploded at them. As it was, I didn’t get the chance.

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Two blogs in two days, indeed, I was struck by inspiration, apparently.

Stripes at half open,

Kevin