Bus Ettiquette

One of my favourite things is watching grumpy old men learn that the world does not revolve solely around them. Take today for instance…

I had spent the day in town buying some last minute gifts for Christmas presents and had sat down on the bus for the haul back home. A women and her kid got on and the kid seemed upset because his Dad didn’t get on the bus or something. I’m not sure of the full details as I had my mp3 player on and had tuned everyone out. Antisocial for the most part, I find busses to be rather overwhelming on a social level so I try to always bring my headphones for that situation.

Regardless, the kid pretty quickly escalated into a full scale tantrum. I think the bus pretty much expected it as it a “19”. The nineteen bus round my way has a reputation for certain things; screaming children, general smell of urine (or weed!), and grumpy people are a standard. It’s just the rule of it. No other bus; just the nineteen.

You could tell that the entire bus had begun to grow bored of the noise and I had thumbed the volume up past seventeen. As a general rule of courtesy, I try never to do that because it means you can hear my music outside the headphones and I find that both rude and embarrassing – depending on what I’m listening to – but on this case I felt it was a worthy cause to avoid a headache.

Still. Mr grumpy old man at the front of the bus had clearly had enough, and, in true old man style, shouted “Shut up!” at the kid.

Well, didn’t the mother explode, and rightly so. She screamed that he was “Her kid.” She is “the mother” and “she’ll deal with it.” And rightly so. Granted, no-one wants to hear a child scream on a bus for twenty minutes, but if you don’t like it, get a taxi, walk, or learn to drive. Failing that; buy headphones. I understand he is old, but there is no justifying screaming at a distraught three year old kid. Sometimes, even as an adult, you just need to cry. We’ve all been there, and if you say you haven’t, you’re a liar.

At the next stop, the bus driver got out of his booth and told Mr grumpy that he could apologise or he could get the next bus. Good. The old man juggled the choices for a bit and then decided to get the next bus. Grumpy git. Like I said, I love when people who think the world revolves around them get a telling. I mean, sure, no-one on that bus wanted to listen to it, but there is a thing called common courtesy. I imagine even the kid isn’t too happy about it. The mother has to deal with it too, and deal with grumpy people on top of it.

Anyway, rant over.