Glasgow buses are so bad it’s not funny anymore. Anyone who has ever set foot on a bus in this city more than once probably knows what I mean. All of the usual complaints apply… they’re always late, the fares keep going up, sometimes they crash… yet somehow the buses in Glasgow manage to bring something new to the table.

The drivers all seem to suffer from post-lobotomy mental defects with personalities ranging from absent to psychotic. The actual buses themselves often smell of puke and/or piss. And you always get a strange feeling like you’re taking a slightly wild gamble when you go up the stairs on a double decker. And that’s because you are. Which is what I do on a daily basis.

There’s about an eighty per cent chance there’s going to be someone pretty obnoxious up there waiting for you. After that it’s about fifty/fifty whether or not they might be openly offensive in some way, with about a thirty per cent chance of aggression or hostility and I’d say about a ten per cent chance of them apparently being dangerous. That is, having the countenance of a lunatic. An actual real lunatic. Those are pretty bad odds.

Then sometimes the bus will get to a certain stop and without any warning not go any further. The driver will just stand up and say that’s it, end of the line. And so you have to get off and wait for another bus. But the thing is, sometimes the drivers don’t even bother telling you. They just go away and leave everyone sitting there like idiots until it becomes obvious that they’re not coming back.

Here are three unusual things that (I swear to you) have happened to me on buses:

1. A driver actually jumped out of his cab, stood nose to nose with me on the pavement and threatened me with violence. I had suggested that he might be on drugs which it seems he probably was.

2. The bus stopped and I heard the driver shouting from downstairs. I went downstairs and realised that I was the only person on the bus. I assumed that the bus was doing the thing where you suddenly get chucked off but the driver said no and asked me to wait where I was. He then disappeared for about ten minutes, leaving me on the bus on my own with the door open and the engine running. Then he reappeared and told me that he was going on holiday first thing the next day and that was his only chance to change some money.

3. I jumped off at my stop and the door closed on me. As in, it shut exactly half of me- one arm, one leg, one ear, one bollock- on the bus, and the other half on the pavement (which incidentally and inconveniently enough, is a good two feet lower than the bus). It didn’t hurt or anything but let’s just say that I wouldn’t do it to show off in front of a girl. So I stood there like a dick for a full twenty seconds or so (which I found out is a long time when trapped in a bus door) before it finally opened very very slowly and the driver said (and I swear that these were his exact words) -It’s just started doing that. (It still pisses me off, even now, that I was so shocked I just stood there and watched the bus drive away and couldn’t even say anything).

So anyway. You would actually think that I hate being on the bus or something. But that’s not true; I actually really like travelling on the bus. Not so much for the feeling of impending random danger but I do really like just sort of spacing out and moving through the city.

Yesterday for one reason or another I ended up taking the bus back from the west end which is only slightly further than where I normally get it from. (Actually it’s slightly further than slightly further but nevermind that). And perhaps predicatably, as the old complaint goes, two came along at once. The first one was one of those small sort of mini bus ones that seems to be operated by some radical splinter group from the main bus company. So I took the other one- the traditional option, the big comfortable double-decker with nutters hiding up the back.

I got on, I paid my fair, I sat downstairs for some reason, I spaced out and I was almost home when the bus stopped and some official bus company employees jumped on and started marching around and saying it was a ticket inspection. Now, you mught be thinking that that isn’t especially unusual but this is only the second time I have ever seen this happen in Glasgow. That’s like twice in sixteen years or something like that. Not very often.

So I’m sitting there thinking, ha ha up yours I’ve actually kept my ticket. (There’s obviously not much to do with a bus ticket in Glasgow; some people use them to pretend they’ve already paid. I have long been in the habit of eating them.)

The wee ratty looking ticket man goes up the bus ignoring everyone because they’re all old ladies and comes to me. Ticket please. Here it is. And then he says naw naw this is from this morning. So I rummage around a bit and get the right one. He looks at it, asks me where I got on, I tell him and he starts giving me some bullshit spiel. I pick up that he’s noticed that I’ve been on the bus for a couple of stops too long and I go to pay the extra or buy another ticket or whatever. Then he’s asking me where I get off the bus and I’m saying here actually, this is my stop. (And it is). And he’s saying it’s okay we’ll get the driver to wait for you. He’s saying this because he’s pulled out a form and he’s reading me some crap like a robot and handing it to me with a pen. And then I realise I’m getting fined £25. Twenty five quid!

So I say that I think this is bullshit but I act all worried and ask what’s going to happen and he says they’ll send me a letter and then I have to go down and pay the fine at the depot. And I might be able to talk his boss round a bit or some shit like that. The bus is stopped at my stop and for a split second I consider saying excuse me fuck you lot and just bolting. But I don’t. I fill in the form. Meanwhile the bus driver completely fails to wait for me and keeps going. This causes my dyslexia to flair up and I fill out the form with a totally bullshit name and address then get up the front of the bus with an increasingly short fuse and ask in a shouty way -Is there any chance of getting off the bus anywhere near where I fucking live? The bus stops and I get off in a very bad mood. (Plus it takes me ten minutes to walk home).

***
That was yesterday. This was today:

I’m waiting for the bus, this time from the usual stop. The bus comes and stops in the usual place which is in the out the road (potentially across a lane of traffic). I let the two old ladies go first because they’re old and that’s what you’re supposed to do…

The first old lady is very fat, the other old lady isn’t. They are both however very old and therefore enfeebled.

The first old lady (fatty) get up to the bus and grabs the side rail handle things and is kind of making this crazy sort of bouncing/wobbling motion. It takes me a second to realise that it is a pathetic attempt to launch her overweight self onto the bus. At the same time her friend is performing a totally rubbish token gesture of help that actually just looks like she’s waving at her at point blank range.

I am not in a good mood this morning anyway and I’m thinking -Oh no here we go. So I sort of put my hand under her arm and say -It’s okay, on you go, take your time. But she just keeps flapping and I realise that I’m going to have to put a bit of effort into it so I get her by the arm and lift her a bit. Then she does this extra determined launch bounce and sort of hops up onto the bus.  Thank goodness for that. Well no because then she collapses.

I’m stood behind her and she’s all in a state of collapse and her friend is just watching and saying oh dear. For a second I couldn’t work out if she was going to faint or die or something but then it becomes clear what’s happened. She’s got from the pavement onto the bus but in the process her legs have given way under her considerable heft.

She’s there at the front of the bus in front of everyone in a kneeling position totally unable to move because she’s too heavy. And I’m behind her trying to support her a bit thinking how bad it is to be forced to support a fat person in a public place with no help whatsoever. I look up the bus and a whole busful of people do this crazy synchronised middle distance stare and thus successfully ignore the absurd circumstance happening right in front of them.

I make a few attempts to bundle the old lady onto the bus with brute force. They fail. She is very heavy.

Then I look up at the driver and he’s just sat there gawping. And I say -Thanks a lot for helping. His expression doesn’t even change. (Bus company people don’t seem to like sarcasm much. During yesterday’s fining experience when I was filling out the form for having travelled past me stop while the bus was actually refusing to stop for me I asked the guy if I was getting charged for this. Charged for what? Does the fine increase the longer you actually refuse to let me get off? No, he said. Well thank fuck for that.)
In the end the fat old lady somehow managed to wriggle off again and was escorted back to the bus stop for a wee sit down by some other people.

I get on the bus, pay my fair and give the driver a few curt words.

So what’s the point of going on about all of that then?

Well, the point is this. It is a really bad (good?) example of something you might want to call corporate dissonance. And it really pisses me off. The bus company are all new wave and upbeat with pastel colours and big smiley values and the reality of the situation is so utterly fuck all to do with any of that it’s laughable. Right under that poster of a cheery asian driver grinning about how good it is to drive nice people around very efficiently for such a reasonable price, you’ve skidded a bit on some two day old vomit, it takes a certain type of concentration to ignore the guy with the scar who’s talking to himself and the driver might as well be a badly trained drunk baboon.

Now, I realise that the gap between the reality and the capitalist fantasy isn’t unusual. In fact, it’s the norm- it’s the result, it is what’s encouraged. Okay, but you havent seen anything until you’ve travelled on a bus in Glasgow.

I’ve got a pedometer and two big skinny legs and I’m not afraid to use them. I will not be taking the bus anymore. Godspeed.