What Makes You Better Than Me???

I was minding my own business, waiting for my bus to arrive, when I noticed this drunk woman in a dirty sweatsuit nearly fall into the bus shack. Upon her grand entrance, she zeroes in on this rocker-looking dude and his girlfriend and randomly starts screaming at him. People started emptying out of the bus shack very quickly as she made her way over to him. Then the drunk woman starts pushing and throwing punches at this guy and he dishes it right back. She flies against the glass and he quickly reaches for the door to get the hell out, but she pushes it against him from the other side, so he then proceeds to smash her with the door until she is stunned.

The guy and girl leave the bus shack and everyone else is keeping a safe distance. The drunk woman emerges and they exchange a few punches and swears until finally he pushes her and she lands on the ground. Then she just begins to taunt him, continuously yelling "WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?" over and over again. They start waking away, telling her to leave them alone and she follows down the block, yelling this over and over again.

"WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?"

"WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?"

Then she just stood on the street corner and screamed this into the sky.

Dr. Dave's Tips for Riding the Bus

Here is Dr. Dave's list of things to keep you entertained while riding the bus:

1) Study ad panels and see if any good ones.

2) Look on floor and see if anyone lost any money - scoop up that spare quarter.

3) Get up and offer your seat to that 89 year old woman with a cane standing beside you, ya jerk.

4) Pretend you can’t hear when the guy behind you is saying, "FUCK…FUCK….FUCK…"

5) Stare at the book or cell phone messages from the person sitting across from you and try to decipher their importance. Stare at the message on your cell phone and try to decipher its importance.

6) Watch how every third person gets stuck trying to leave by the rear door (using the “supposedly easy to use” Yellow Strip Rear Door Exit. "BACK DOOR…PLEASE!!" The person who invented the “Yellow Strip Rear Door Exit” device should be forced to live in a house where EVERY SINGLE DOOR has the Yellow Two Strip Door Exit – except the bathroom door – which has THREE yellow strip door exits.

7) Scratch your head and wonder who wrote the Busology cartoon panels since the people they are often aimed at probably don’t read them and would never follow their instructions anyway. Invent new ones….Instead of Backus Packus Smackus….how about “Smellus… Badus…Get offus... Bus-us” Or “U..R.. CRAZEE…DON’T…SIT..NEAR..ME”

8) Take the gum off your shoe

9) Pretend you are crazy and stand up and start yelling and witness the response.

10) Study the clothing of fellow busees and realize that nobody in Winnipeg really has any fashion sense.

Spiders! On the Bus!

Here's a story from Kenton:

A few months ago, I found myself sitting behind Little Miss Muffet on a Winnipeg Transit bus.

I knew it was her, because she was wearing a sleeveless summer shirt, sensible shoes, and a big, black spider on the back of her neck.

No kidding. 

I looked a bit closer to make sure it wasn't a tattoo - it wasn't - and I weighed my options. Should I: 

• Brush it off;
• Blow on it;
• Squish it with my hand;
• Hit it with something;
• Tell her;
• Wait and see;
• Do absolutely nothing?

Having touched strangers' necks in the past and regretted it, I settled on just telling her, which seemed like a decent middle-ground thing to do. 

"Excuse me, young lass," I said, "but there appears to be a spider on your neck."

She sprung into the middle of the aisle, jumped up and down, screamed "Jesus Christ!" and flung the poor bastard across the bus. He never knew what hit him.

She dropped back onto her tuffet and hyperventilated.

I got off the bus, and as it pulled away, I whispered, "And she didn't even get a chance to thank me."

Caught on Tape Madness

I just took a quick look on youtube to see if anyone had uploaded any interesting videos related to our favourite transit system, and lo and behold! I haven't checked in a while, so it was quite surprising to find these. Here are 3 WTF Winnipeg Transit moments, caught on tape.

Here is some guy getting randomly beat up by a guy who looks like he just wandered out of a cave:


Not sure what the story is here, but here's a video of a guy getting arrested on the bus:


And finally, here's some awkward video of a girl serenading the 11 Portage passengers in song:

The Female "Frank Booth"

After reading this story from Ashley, I immediately thought of Frank Booth from the film Blue Velvet. But it's about a girl. A teenage girl. Holy hell. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, please see the video embedded after the story:

And just when I think I’ve seen it all.

We’ve all seen the same people on the bus. The rowdy kids sticking their arms out the windows, the ones with the strollers forcing elderly people out of their seats so they can squeeze in, the ones who roll hand-made cigarettes, the drunks who try and sneak a sip of Lucky when they think no one is looking. But has anyone ever seen someone doing drugs? I have, and she’s not pretty.

Let me just describe the situation. It’s about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the 18 Jefferson is beyond full. I’m pretty sure the bus driver is turning people away because the bus was as packed as a mosh pit at a rock concert. I am in front of the back door, pressed up against people I don’t know and facing others I’d wished I wasn’t facing.

Then, this girl gets on. And this girl was crazy.

First, I hear her, from where I am, telling the driver “my friend has my transfer. She’s at the back of the bus.” Of course he lets her on - her friend has her transfer.

Then, she starts yelling at other passengers, “excuse me!” Now, I say yelling, because I shouldn’t be able to hear her from where I am. Then she tells her friend, “Hold onto me. I’m saying excuse me. If they don’t move, they’re rude.” No, they’re not rude, there just isn’t any room for people to move to. So, naturally, she starts pushing her way to where I am. She squeezes in with her friend in front of the back door and is now about an arms length away from me.

“I just bought so many pills! Yeah, look!” *Opens her purse and shakes around multiple pill bottles*

Uh. ‘Kay.

After screaming “whore” at a girl who got off the bus, the girl reaches into her purse and pulls out a small piece of paper and I now smell marijuana. I turn and look at her and as I turn back, I hear her tell her friends, “hold me up” and “cover me.” I can see her moving around some powder on what looked like a gum wrapper. Then she says, “It’s like people have never seen drugs before.” No, I’m sure they have, just not in the hands of a 16-year-old while riding public Transit during rush hour. But, that’s just a guess.

I’ll state here that I’ve never done drugs and know little, to nothing, about them.

I move back up onto the first stair and pretend to text on my phone when she and her two friends sit down in the three seats facing the back door but there were only two open seats so one girl sat on another girls lap. Little Miss Junkie then asked the elderly man beside her to move over. To where, the floor? He wasn’t taking up any more room than he was allowed. He looked at her and looked away without moving an inch. She turns back to her friends, “I asked him to move and he just looked at me.” Uh, DUH.

She starts pointing at someone and at first I think it’s me, and saying “What the f**k are you looking at? Don’t f**king look at me. Next time you look at me I’ll kick you a*s.” Then, thankfully, I figure out she isn’t talking about me and I make my way to the first open seat. I sit down and continue to look out the window and stare around the bus. But when I glance down at her for a second, I see her snorting whatever was in the gum wrapper and then stare blankly ahead.

She just snorted coke, on the bus, during rush hour.

Why do I assume it was coke? Because there was a nice white line of a chalky-looking substance smeared across her cheek, and I doubt she was snorting Rockets.

Transit Chivalry

Here's a positive story from JG about a nice old-school gentleman on the bus, when does this happen?

Many years ago in the spring, riding the 16 to Southdale I stepped onto a full bus. The only available seat was covered in mud from someone's shoes. The teenaged boy sitting on the other half of the seat was a true gentleman. He looked at me & then covered the seat with his duo-tang so that I could sit without getting mud everywhere.

The Booger Burglar

Here's a pretty disgusting story from Nicole:

About 2 years ago, I got on the 66 Grant to head to work during the busy Christmas season. I was so happy to find an empty seat beside a normal looking middle aged woman. The seat was a gift despite the bus being packed with people. I sat down relieved with my good luck and wondered why no one else took the opportunity to sit down. And then, the truth became disgustingly apparent. From the corner of my eye, I see my seat buddy pick her nose and proceed to "play" with the gigantic piece of yellow snot ball. It was probably the biggest piece of snot that I ever saw (and I work in health-care). After stretching it and rolling it, I am absolutely horrified when the woman proceeds to eat the mass of mucous like a delicious piece of candy. At this point, I am almost dry heaving. I quickly abandon the seat and stand for the remainder of my bus ride. A few stops later, a man got on the packed bus and sat down in the same seat, unaware of the horror that unfolded moments before. True to form, the woman again went in for a second helping of snot. The man looked as though he was trying to ignore it while I was dry heaving at the back of the bus.

Back Door = Busdriver Urinal?

Here's a weird story from Randy, I want to believe this is real, but either way it's a great story!:

My Father now deceased retired from Winnipeg Transit in the 80s but he left us with some hilarious stories. Here's one of them. He said on some routes there were no bathroom facilities for the drivers and at the end of the route they would open the back door slightly and relieve themselves from the steps when there were no passengers on the bus of course. As the story goes my Dad peed out the back door one evening and went back to the driver's seat. After he was settled a well dressed lady got on the bus rubbing her wet left shoulder and told my Dad he should check his bus because liquid was leaking from the side by the back door and she got sprayed when she walked by. Of course my Dad knew what had happened but he got off the bus to check the situation and came back to tell the lady he could not see anything wrong. He then proceeded to take the lady to her destination probably smiling all the way.

The Eye Cleaner

Here's a nice mental picture for you from Chichi:

No word of a lie, while I was on a Winnipeg transit bus today, I witnessed a man not just once, but twice clean out his eyes with his finger tips and then LICK ALL OF HIS FINGER TIPS!! So disgusting!

Negative Energy

Here's another odd bus story from Weirdos of Winnipeg:

An older man and a younger woman are sitting side-by-side on the bus. He's happily reading his Uptown magazine. They sit silently for several blocks. Then, out of nowhere:

She: You need to get your negative energy away from me.

He: Huh?

She: I saw the way you were looking at me at the bus stop. What right do you have to then come and sit beside me?

He: *confused*

She: And now you're giving me the same look. Your negative energy is ruining my day. You need to find a different place to sit.

He: [looks around. There is clearly no other place to sit] I'm ... just reading my paper.

She: And now you're looking at me like I'm crazy! Take your negative energy away from me. [rants for quite awhile about his negative energy]

He: Oh, just shut up already!

She: What right do you have to tell a stranger to shut up? You need to find a different place to sit. Next time there's a seat you need to find a different place to sit.

He: [reaches past her and dings the bell. Angrily.]