"Jaded New Yorker" Speaks Out

Nobody Told Me There'd be Be Days Like These

From "Nobody Told Me", John Lennon
Christ you know it ain't easy
From "Ballad Of John And Yoko ", John Lennon

From "Alone, reproduced with permission from sweetchuck

"Public Transportation in NYC": This is a guest story from "Jaded New Yorker"

Once upon a time I had a bus driver friend who drove the bus I take to go to work. His name was Jerry. Jerry was a driver for over 20 years and he had many stories. He also had a web page for his fellow drivers to access info about the MTA. His page included stories about what drivers encountered while driving the bus. I would often complain to him about the many things that I noticed happening on the bus. He told me to post these observations on his web page. I began an installment that I called "Points of View from a Passenger" I posted the first two parts of this mini-series and then his page blew up, (not my fault, he was using Vonage). I will however, reconstruct this mini-series for all of you very lucky readers.

Points of View from a Passenger - part one - FAT PEOPLE
Folks, FAT PEOPLE do not belong on the bus. Period. Ever get on a crowded bus and can hardly move because of the FAT PEOPLE? You try to be polite, say excuse me, and so forth, but these people get annoyed at YOU when you can’t squeeze past their gelatinous mass. The wheelchair lift in the front of the bus should be set to "eject" so we can throw them off the bus. Ahh, that’s better. No more FAT PEOPLE on the bus.

Points of View from a Passenger - part two - RUDE PEOPLE

Now we come to the RUDE PEOPLE. The blank-faced idiots that insist on standing all bunched up in the front of the bus while the whole back of the bus is clear. These lummoxes stand there, deaf and dumb and not moving, no matter how many times the driver or anyone else tells them to move back. Oh well, I say to myself, at least they are blocking the door so the fat people can’t get on. Throw the RUDE PEOPLE off the bus.

Points of View from a Passenger - part three - ANNOYING PEOPLE
There are several of these types.The Mover - these people get on the bus with ALL of their Earthly belongings. Bags, bundles, backpacks, luggage and baby carriages. An entire apartment’s worth of baggage, which of course they take up the front of the bus with. (see rude people).

The Turtles - these people are brain dead slugs, who yell "back door" so they can get off the bus after stumbling to consciousness once the bus driver has begun to pull out of the stop thus causing anyone with no patience to hasten their departure by pushing them off the bus.

The Cell Phone Talker - how many times have you been on the bus only to hear some moron say to some other moron "I’m On The Bus" Not anymore you’re not.

Points of View from a Passenger - part four - SICK PEOPLE 
Two words for all SICK PEOPLE - STAY HOME!!!!!
Germs are for homes and hospitals. If you get on a crowded bus hacking and sneezing and coughing and all phlegmy no one wants to be near you. No one wants to catch what you have. Don’t whine about you have no sick days, you can’t help it, blah blah blah, you Typhoid Mary, get off the bus.

Points of View from a Passenger - part five - STUPID PEOPLE
Well, there are so many of these it could fill a book. I’ll stick to the best of them.

Okay so you got the person who owns a piggy bank on the bus. How can you tell? They pay the $2.25 fare with 45 nickels. Takes a long time that does. They all jam up in the fare box while the person looks around to all the other passengers with a stupid grin on their face as if to say, "I can’t help being so helplessly stupid, really I can’t." BOUNCE them right off the bus.

Then you got the idiots that get on the bus asking for change. Of a Twenty.

The opposite of this is the jerk who dips 40 Metrocards into the fare box that don’t work. These folks stand there dead-eyed, staring at the driver when he tells them they have no money on their Metrocard. "Can you fix it?" they say with their dead eyes to the driver. No matter where on this planet you come from the words "No Money" are universal in any language. GET OFF THE BUS.

So here we are after getting rid of all the FAT, RUDE, ANNOYING, SICK and STUPID people there is no one left on the bus except the driver and me.

Just the way I like it.