Tales From The 62 Bus - Number 3

Well, I didn't manage to get to the book event last night as I had a stinking migraine. So here, in the absence of a proper post, is another Glasgow bus story.

I was sitting there on the bus, happily reading away and listening to the drunk behind me eating his fish and chips (I'm just glad I couldn't see him). The bus stopped at a junction and there was a loud banging on the door. The driver eventually opened it and this woman stormed on and started shouting at the driver:

"You just hit ma car, ya daft bampot."

"I didnae."

"Aye ya did ya numpty. You've damaged ma car." She pointed to this black car just in front of us which, to my untrained eye, looked as though it didn't have a scratch on it. "Did ye no' hear the big bang?"

The driver looked puzzled "Naw." He turned round to the rest of the bus. "Did any of yis hear a bang?" Choruses of "Naw", "Nothin'" and "Get aff the bus hen, I want tae get up the road."

So they shouted at each other for a few more minutes and other people on the bus started joining in - particularly vociferous was an elderly woman, a real nippy sweetie, who kept telling the car driver to get off the bus because she wanted to get home. The car driver produced a witness, and the bus driver called the bus inspector who turned up a couple of minutes later. The drunk behind me muttered "Jeez, can ye no gi'es peace tae finish ma dinner" and eventually hauled himself out of his seat to go and join the fray at the front of the bus. All I can say is that if he ever applies for a job with the United Nations Peace Keeping Force, I hope he doesn't come looking for a reference from me.

He waved his chips at the woman whose car had allegedly been hit. "Hen, ye're puttin' me aff ma fish supper, can ye no' shut the feck up?"

"Go and sit down ya drunken auld get. This is none o' your business."

"Oh, none o' ma business is it? Aye it's ma business. I want tae eat ma chips in peace, and ah cannae. Ye've spoiled ma dinner, ah dinnae want it ony more." And with that, he screwed the fish and chips (traditionally wrapped in newspaper for a change) into a ball and heaved the whole lot out of the bus door. Only he didn't screw it up very well. The badly wrapped fish and chips landed squarely in the face of a poor, defenceless woman walking past. She immediately shouldered her way into the melee at the front of the bus, a piece of fish batter resting jauntily on her hair, shaking chips off her coat, tomato ketchup looking like blood dripping down her face.

Me and the bloke sitting next to me were howling with laughter by this point. The bus inspector took the woman hit by flying fish supper off the bus and tried to calm her down, the bus driver sent the drunk back to sit down, the car driver went to pull her car in to the side of the road just around the corner and the bus driver followed, so that they could exchange details. The drunk stoted back down the bus still shouting about the car driver.

"Aye, you widnae want tae come home to HER wi' a penny short in yer pay packet would ye? Wee hairy." [Glaswegian term for a female ned, for those unaware, by the way].

I'm pleased to say, though, that he soon perked up. As the bus driver parked around the corner the drunk looked out of the window. We'd parked outside somewhere very interesting.

"Oh look," he squealed, "An off-license, we can all get oot and get a wee hauf bottle o' whisky. Whit de ye say? Shall we all get blootered?" He then started giving us a unique rendition of Bob Dylan's Blowing In The Wind, recognisable only from the fact that the words consisted of
"The blowin' inna wind, is a blowin' inna wind, the blowin' is a blowin' inna wind."

Eventually, the bus set off again, and peace descended, with the exception of the drunk behind me, who tired out from doing his Ghandi impersonation, had lapsed into beery scented snores.