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.
My beef about the yellow strip is that people don't spend any time trying to figure out how they work.
ReplyDeleteThe old bus strips are sensitive to touch. It's not hard to figure out that there is a strip of wire in the middle of the strip and that it needs pressure to open the door. I usually take my thumb and press hard into the very centre for a few seconds. It's when people push once on the strip and don't look where they're pushing that the door will not open.
The newer busses are reactive to motion in front of the yellow strip. You need to wait until the sensor turns on, then you can simply wave your hand in front of the strip and the door will open - no touch even required. If you press your hand on it before you stop and then try to press the door open, you will only bend the door and its hinges, and the sensor probably won't pick any motion at all, so you look like an you're trying to break your way off the bus.
Also, bus drivers can't open their rear doors. Don't say "back door please" and wait for them to open it - they can't. Walk to the front and get off their if you can't figure out this door technology business. And don't just get mad and shove the door if you can't figure it out. You are not a monkey.
Really? You wave your hands? I had no idea!
ReplyDeleteThe only other line that I like better than "back door please" and everyone yelling "press the yellow strip" is when some jerk yells "you missed my stop" and half the bus yells back " your on an express bus"
ReplyDeleteIt does suck to take an express bus by accident.
ReplyDeleteJaimz, I hope you've tried the hand waving thing. It's pretty fun.
I did today, it was awesome.
ReplyDeleteactually.. the bus driver can "Activate" or not "activate" the back door. true.. he can not open it.. but he can activate it to allow it to be opened. Some of the buses its messed up and simply stopping and opening the front door does not automatically activate it.
ReplyDeleteI always watch the back door. People are legitimately stupid about it sometimes to the point where the appropriate response to "back door please" becomes "learn to read".
ReplyDeleteAlso, just a nice little trick, on most of the older buses with the wire strips somebody has gone around to a lot of them and marked in "sweet spots" with a black marker. Look for the black 'x's and push lightly there with your finger, they're the most sensitive spots on the strip according to some good guy with a black sharpie.