And yet, AND YET.
Something that has always had a way of eating away at my very inner soul as I have gone through my adolescence, is the general etiquette of society. I am always trying to convince myself that I have a fervent passion for respecting others, myself and the community around me. In truth, well, that probably isn't 100% correct, the hypocrisy I seem to radiate is astonishing.
But, I digress. I spend an awful lot of time on the bus. I'm talking, a LOT of time here. I spend more time on a bus than your stereotypical single white mother dragging 3 half cast children behind her into town for their "big day out in town.", spending most of it in McDonald's and Primark.
Yeah, okay, that joke was in poor taste. I love McDonald's and Primark... Just not most of their customers.
Again, breaking off into a poor tangent; I probably hop onto a bus at least over 20 times week, and spend a minimum of 30 minutes on it each time. If you work that out, you have 10,080 minutes in a week. I spend 600 of those minutes on a bus. 600 hundreds minutes of my time, a week. 600 hundred minutes, sat on a cramped Stagecoach bus, stifled by the overwhelming smell of piss and the inane whining of lower year school kids.
I mean, to an extent, you can't really ever take out such standards on companies like Stagecoach, because, it's not as if they couldn't possibly hire bus drivers that look like they'd rather have a terminal illness than be at work. It's not as if they could even DREAM of attempting to clean the buses properly, or even, design buses that seemed to at least feel relatively comfortable. That really would be just pushing reality to it's edges, wouldn't it Stagecoach? And well, at the current standards it almost feels worthwhile paying extortionate prices for bus journeys!
I wish I could bring it upon myself to apologise for such an onslaught against Stagecoach, but guys, you're shit. Sort it out.
Today, I boarded the bus ready for my journey home (I was again greeted by a bus driver with a contorted face that was reminiscent of a bulldog's arsehole). I put my fancy 'travelcard' onto the scanner and sat down. Then plugged my headphones in and switched on some Snow Patrol. I tend to do that, just plug in the headphones and ignore the world on bus journeys.
Now, I have headphones that were marginally expensive. It takes a CONSIDERABLE amount of noise for me to lose focus on music. But, somehow, somehow, christ. I don't think there are words in the English language that will honestly portray and do justice to the absolute level of raw frustration I was basically emitting to the entire bus as 5 little first/second year walking backpacks shouted and screamed for the entire bus to evidently love.
This situation however, is something I am relatively used to by now, as I said, Stagecoach buses aren't exactly the Dolce & Gabbana of the Transport Industry. But these little fuckers seemed utterly intent on pissing off the entire bus perpetually.
My tolerance is usually rock solid. I am usually an indefinite steel wall of emotion.
... Not today. Not when I receive a ball of paper hitting the back of my precious head.
At this point in the epic tale of the bus journey, I'd have preferred to have told a different version of events - more along the lines of...
"I STOOD UP, AND CHALLENGED THE LITTLE ONES PUBLICLY, CONDEMNING THEIR ACTIONS, CONFISCATED THE PAPER AND LEFT THEM TO CONTEMPLATE WHAT THEY'VE DONE."
That, sadly, is not the truth. I remained sat, with my headphones still on, furrowing my eyebrows occasionally in disgust. In fact, a girl sat to the left of me was the only one with the apparent balls to do anything about the bastards, and might I add, she did a fantastic job of it.
Now that I have confessed publicly to being too much of an utter man-child to stand up to misbehaving children 5 years younger than me. I will actually attempt to get to the point of this post.
If you were to ask yourself, when do you ever, truly, consider how the person sat next to you on a bus feels?
If you responded in your mind - "all the time.", you are the epitome of what it is to be a moral human being, congratulations!
... I'm kidding, it makes you strange. It's human nature to be a little bit nonchalant about others sometimes, we are both social and self-dependent creatures, I think it's important to have a balance.
But why, at such a young age of 11/12, are these children behaving as if nothing matters, as if everyone around them in a separate dimension to themselves. Of course, it's quite possible I've just forgotten what it feels like to be a child and I'm now stuck in the arrogant student phase, which is very, very plausible. Perhaps I am overly sensitive about how people behave in public places like that. Perhaps those kids at the back of the bus really were a little bunch of mischievous twats.
Either way, I need to find a new means of travel.
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