It has to be said that as far as London lunatics go, I've already experienced more than my fair share. It seems that regardless of what time I leave our flat and set off to work (this can be any time between 8 and half past 8 due to oversleeping / bad hair days / major not bothered attitude), and never mind the fact that buses run up and down Uxbridge Road every three minutes, I will without fail, ALWAYS get on the bus with a nutter.
Three days after arriving in London back in October, and still a bit scared of the whole bus thing in general, I jumped on the 260 to White City clutching my oyster card like such a geeky newbie. The bus was so packed, as in it was a literal case of body to body, bump and grind the whole journey. To be fair to me, as soon as I'd got onto the bus I'd scanned the crowd and spotted what can only be described as a definite pervert in the midst. So I'd positioned myself near the smiley blonde girl and felt a-okay.
Due to the constant pushing and swaying of bodies around me I hadn't noticed that the aforementioned pervert had moved through the crowd and was RIGHT behind me. I didn't notice until he began to erm.. rub himself.. against my bum. Once, twice, three times he sort of bumped deliberately into me and I had had enough. I turned around put my hand on his chest and pushed him away saying very firmly, "Stop doing that", and again moved myself to be as far from him as possible. Sorted.
Or so I thought.
Once again, the swaying movement of the bus meant he could creep through the crowd like a lurking lurker and appear RIGHT BEHIND me again. Nothing I could do except get off the bus, which I planned to do at the next stop even though I was still a little way away from where I needed to be. With this plan in mind I just ignored him as he started again. Until the feeling against my back sort of.. changed? I swirled round ready to really shout at him this time and was presented with something that is now burned onto the back of my eyelids for life. Let's just say he had taken 'it' out and was relieving himself onto my back. Needless to say I had a major-scale meltdown, made a right scene and the good people of the 260 handled the situation by chucking off the pervert and reporting the incident with the help of some iPhone snaps.
Other commuting highlights include a man shouting at the driver about going slowly so much so that the driver stopped the bus, came out of his little cubby hole and squared up to the hot cross man. It was a few minutes after forehead-to-forehead anger when he said to the now FURIOUS driver; "Do you not know who I am mate!? I'm Mo Farrah's cousin mate, and as a family we don't do moving so slowly!" Hilarious in hindsight, except not so much when I had to leap off the bus to avoid being in the middle of a genuine fist fight as more passengers got involved to diffuse the situation.
And a woman dressed head to toe in red faux fur who sat down on the priority seats despite there being a couple of particularly frail looking elderly men just arrived on the bus. When one of them asked if she would mind standing so they could sit (so politely) she said that her outfit made her so hot she had 'felt faint'. Outraged by this response, another passenger said to red fur lady; "Take off your fucking fur bolero and let them sit." Red fur lady didn't like this one bit and literally started SCREAMING at the lady who had dared to get involved and eventually both of them got kicked off the bus. So annoying because I was so Team Other Passenger. Either way, at least the little old men got their seats eventually. To finish this post let's just take this moment to laugh at the fact she had a BOLERO on. So damn retro.
L x
