Funny Bus Journey – Destination Unknown

A couple of weeks ago I was a little surprised on the bus. Normally when you leave the city there are only a couple of places that people get on the bus outside of the city. They are the transfer station, where all buses stop, and near a suburban shopping centre. After that it is a most unusual occurrence. So you can imagine my surprise when somebody got on the bus in the middle of nowhere.

Soon afterwards this young Asian girl sat moved seats quite purposely and sat next to a more elderly lady. I thought to myself, “Oh, she’s met someone that she knows.” They talked briefly and then the lady mentioned something about, “You’d better ask the bus driver.” She duly did this and it was apparent that she wasn’t sure which stop was hers. The driver radioed base to see if anyone else knew as it wasn’t a well known street. He even stopped the bus so that we wouldn’t go too far.

It was at this stage that the resident wannabe-lesbian who only made boyfriends with the worst men on earth, three at last count in her life, stuck her nose in and mentioned that, “I know the area quite well.” Side note: it’s amazing what you can learn on a bus, especially because obnoxious people tend to be quite loud mouthed when talking about themselves. Of course she asked the same question as the bus driver. Why didn’t I think of that? Generally if you yell at a foreigner they magically understand. Perhaps she should have tried that tack. Mind you, she did ask if she had a mobile phone.

It turns out that the girl was trying to get to a friend’s house. She knew the name of the street but had no idea how to get there other than to catch a specific bus. You can imagine the talk on the bus – “Why would you get on a bus if you don’t know where you’re going?’ was a question much asked. The girl didn’t want the driver holding everybody up so asked him to drive on. I was quite curious as to where she intended to go and checked the map when I arrived home. It turns out that she only had to travel three streets from where she caught the bus and it would have taken all of five minutes to walk. She probably ended up at a railway station somewhere. In her hand was a bag of shopping so one bloke onboard commented, “At least she won’t starve!”

Why would you catch a bus if you were headed for destination unknown? (A great Pseudo Echo song, by the way)