Captain Morgan of the Winnipeg Transit

Love this, from Laura:

One day last summer I was bussing down portage on my way to work. The bus was kind of crowded, and there were only a few seats left at the back of the bus. This guy got on, sat down across from me and started trying to talk to a couple people including myself. We ignored him because he was drunk and fishing for someone to start a fight with. When he realized he wasn't getting anywhere reached into his back back and pulled out a 66 of captains and just started drinking. I got off the bus shortly after and just walked to work from there.

Spit your Spitz somewherez else

Here's a really gross story from Holly:

I climbed aboard the crowded 137 St. Norbert and managed to find a seat at the very back of the bus. After a few moments, a waft of some sort of nut smell filled my nostrils. Across from me sat a quirky regular, today we'll call him Mr. Seed. Mr. Seed would reach into his lunch bag, toss some sunflower seeds in his mouth, spit the shells into his hand, then flick the saliva-coated shells into a Ziploc bag. On a packed bus. Disgusting.

Mr. Seed changed seats to then sit in an empty seat next to me at the very back, continuing with his snacking. As the bus began emptying out, Awesome Guy sitting on the other side of me was about to get off the bus and he had had enough of Mr. Seed's poor choice of snack. He sarcastically said to Mr. Seed, "That was considerate of you to spit in your hand then touch the poles." I began giggling. Mr. Seed said, "I haven't touched anything." Awesome Guy corrected him and said, "You touched that pole AND that pole." I burst out laughing at this point. Mr. Seed half-heartedly said, "Sorry," and halted his snacking.

After Awesome Guy left the bus and my laughing subsided, Mr. Seed turned to me for solace (WHY?!?!) and said, "I'd hate to know what other germs are all over this bus." I said to him, "I feel the same way as that guy. That (the seed eating and spitting on a bus) is pretty disgusting." I think Mr. Seed quietly said, "I'm on a diet," or something like that. I'm not entirely sure as I was listening to my iPod and his attempt to justify spitting in his hand wasn't worth turning down my music. He then went on to say about kids with snot on bars, blah blah blah. I clearly was not listening so he trailed off and stopped talking.

People, having a snack that requires you to put saliva on your hand is NOT a snack to have on a bus, diet or not! You can get shelled seeds.

Halloween Chronic

Daniel tells the spooky tale of the halloween chronic:

I was heading home from garden city on Halloween, about 2 stops in a group of people got on the bus and came and sat near me in the back of the bus.

All fine and dandy eventually they started talking about pot and smoking and stuff eventually one of them pulled out a cigarette and another pulled out a pipe and they started smoking some pot on the bus!

while this was happening they slowly got louder and louder the bus driver kept looking back to see what was going on never being able to see anything.

the guy sitting next to me eventually asked me if I wanted to take a hoot. I ignored him but he kept rambling on about how good his pot was.

I got off a few stops later and the bus driver asked if they were smoking in the back in the back I sent him a nod and then jumped off.

during my ride he kicked a different group of 3 passengers looked to be about 17-18 years old off for smoking by the back doors.

All in all a funny Halloween.

And here's a related video of some guy smoking his "medicine" on the Winnipeg Transit:

Backus Packus Breakus Bones

This story seems to be in a continuing series of stories about people paranoid of backpacks. Here's an anonymous story about one such event:

This is probably the most boring story ever. I get on the 11 to go home from class last week and I had one of those shoulder bags where the flap occasionally flips open. The bus was packed because it was just after 5, so I stand in the very corner near the flip up wheel chair seats.

Beside me, there's a woman who appears to be 80-85 talking to a man about the same age about how "mothers with strollers get respect on the bus but old folks with walkers and canes don't." (She happened to have neither.)

So the bus stops and slap of my bag swings forward and his this woman's knee. She goes "That girl's bag must way 20 pounds and hit my fractured knee!" Everyone watching knew it didn't so I just ignored her.

The second time, the bus stops and the flap hits her leg again so I go to hold it closed. She goes "Excuse me, I already have a fractured rib, I don't need a fractured knee!"

Well, I had to get off at that point because everyone was staring at me and I was embarrassed as fuck.

"There's a baby in there!"

Heather writes:

 I am probably one of the few who will openly say that I encourage babies stay in strollers on the bus. It's the safest place for a baby since it is a moving vehicle that stops (often abruptly) frequently while passengers are jerked around unrestrained.

Anyways, me and my 10-year-old daughter got on the 19, after her doctors appointment. We were having a pleasant day, despite the bus being packed. There was a stroller to our right and people standing, squished to our left and front. Of course, more people were let on and they were pushing me into the stroller. I was trying to be respectful and mind the child. The mother, who seemed to be either an addict of some sort or a recovering addict, snapped loudly "THERE'S A BABY IN THERE." I turned and saw that, indeed, she was screaming at me. I don't know what her issue was with me. I have never seen her before.

But shortly later, when the bus emptied of passengers enough for us to sit down, another young mom holding a toddler came on and the snipe-y mom was talking to this teen mom all fine and dandy.

I got off the bus relieved I didn't have to risk another run in with that crazy mom. Or so I thought. My and my daughter made it across Portage waiting to cross Vaughan. I hear "MOVE IT, FUCK". I looked behind me and the nasty mom was walking up to The Bay doors, well away enough from us that we could not possible be in her way. She was giving us the most awful look. It put stain on our lovely day.

Ya Broke Whore

Here's a great story from Monica about an altercation between three random people on the bus yesterday morning:

It’s Tuesday, 10:30am. I am on the 18 heading downtown.

I’m sitting in the back left corner and “Shelly” is in the back right. Shelly is probably in her early 40s, casually put together but unpolished, maybe had a slightly rough life. She has been on her phone and was talking slightly louder than she should have. She gets off saying even louder, “Disperse, disperse!” Kinda odd, but nothing too crazy for the 18.

Then a bunch of people get on at River and Osborne.

“Brenda”, a seemingly lower class late 30-something makes her way to the back and sits in the middle of the long back seat and “Doug”, a late 20s middle class wannabe gangsta, sits on the back sideways bench in front of me on the left side.

Doug is wearing shiny white sneakers, baggy jeans, over the ear headphones and a shirt with the likeness of Marilyn Monroe wearing a kerchief over her face, clad in a bikini and covered in gang tattoos.



As soon as Brenda sees this shirt she says with contempt, “Is that what happens 50 years later, you gotta be sold like a slut?” Doug chuckles.

Wait 15 seconds…she starts in again. "Fuck man, celebrities get no respect for all the shit they did and now this. Bing treated like sluts." Something, something "$10 blow jobs." And with this sentence she looks at Shelly trying to get a “comrade” to agree with her.

Shelly, obviously not impressed says, "What the fuck are you talking about. I don’t know about $10 blow jobs! Is that the going rate for blow jobs?"

Brenda, a little taken aback because she probably thought Shelly would agree with her replies "I don’t know, I’m just saying that they treat women like shit and it only costs them $10."

Shelly – "Why you fucking talking to me about $10 blow jobs. I don’t know how much whores charge for blow jobs. Is that how much you charge? Are you a fucking broke whore, ya broke whore?"

Brenda – "Fuck you I don’t know what blow jobs cost..."

Shelly – "Well you brought it up. Broke whore! Broke whore!"

We are now on Graham. Brenda gets up to leave, Doug, all riled up and wanting to join in to the trouble he caused says something like, "stop bitching about everything." Brenda retorts, giving him some body language, "you know what a bitch is. A fucking bitch is..." Well, in all honesty I don’t know what she said because all I could hear was Shelly yelling at the top her lungs, "Broke whore! Broke whore! Broke whore!" until Brenda was off the bus. Actually she kept yelling it out the window until we pulled away from the bus stop.

Doug and I look at each other and I say, "I don’t think you should wear that shirt again."

What Makes You Better Than Me???

I was minding my own business, waiting for my bus to arrive, when I noticed this drunk woman in a dirty sweatsuit nearly fall into the bus shack. Upon her grand entrance, she zeroes in on this rocker-looking dude and his girlfriend and randomly starts screaming at him. People started emptying out of the bus shack very quickly as she made her way over to him. Then the drunk woman starts pushing and throwing punches at this guy and he dishes it right back. She flies against the glass and he quickly reaches for the door to get the hell out, but she pushes it against him from the other side, so he then proceeds to smash her with the door until she is stunned.

The guy and girl leave the bus shack and everyone else is keeping a safe distance. The drunk woman emerges and they exchange a few punches and swears until finally he pushes her and she lands on the ground. Then she just begins to taunt him, continuously yelling "WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?" over and over again. They start waking away, telling her to leave them alone and she follows down the block, yelling this over and over again.

"WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?"

"WHAT MAKES YOU BETTER THAN ME?"

Then she just stood on the street corner and screamed this into the sky.

Caught on Tape Madness

I just took a quick look on youtube to see if anyone had uploaded any interesting videos related to our favourite transit system, and lo and behold! I haven't checked in a while, so it was quite surprising to find these. Here are 3 WTF Winnipeg Transit moments, caught on tape.

Here is some guy getting randomly beat up by a guy who looks like he just wandered out of a cave:


Not sure what the story is here, but here's a video of a guy getting arrested on the bus:


And finally, here's some awkward video of a girl serenading the 11 Portage passengers in song:

Negative Energy

Here's another odd bus story from Weirdos of Winnipeg:

An older man and a younger woman are sitting side-by-side on the bus. He's happily reading his Uptown magazine. They sit silently for several blocks. Then, out of nowhere:

She: You need to get your negative energy away from me.

He: Huh?

She: I saw the way you were looking at me at the bus stop. What right do you have to then come and sit beside me?

He: *confused*

She: And now you're giving me the same look. Your negative energy is ruining my day. You need to find a different place to sit.

He: [looks around. There is clearly no other place to sit] I'm ... just reading my paper.

She: And now you're looking at me like I'm crazy! Take your negative energy away from me. [rants for quite awhile about his negative energy]

He: Oh, just shut up already!

She: What right do you have to tell a stranger to shut up? You need to find a different place to sit. Next time there's a seat you need to find a different place to sit.

He: [reaches past her and dings the bell. Angrily.]

Mr. Car takes the Bus

A funny observation from Angela:

One day i was on the bus and this guy jumped on the bus wearing a license plate around his neck. Then he sat at the front of the bus and he started to make driving noises. After that he started saying all the names of the streets and it was hilarious.

The Orange Peel Orgy

Here's a story from Jenn that may just very well either turn you off eating oranges forever, or forever scar your mind into associating this story with the smell of oranges. You have been warned!

My friend and I had gone to a party one night, and we had left fairly early and caught one of the last buses home. The 47 only had a few passengers on it but my friend and I had sat down near the back of the bus in front of the sideways facing seats. About 10 minutes in the ride, I noticed the smell of oranges, thinking not a big deal some one is eating an orange. So I start looking around to see who it is when I noticed that there is a guy sitting in the seat opposite of my friend and I, on the pathway seat (no one else sitting next to him) and his penis is hanging out, full on out of his pants, zipper down and everything, and to top it all off, he was using an orange peel to rub it. I quickly nudged my friend (who had chosen the window seat) and said look at this guy, so she does and we're like what the eff? Luckily, our stop was only a few away and we got up and went out the front door, but not bef! ore informing the bus driver that there was a guy in the back with indecent exposure.

Pennies Everywhere!

Here's another story from Chris about a regular on the 47:

A regular looking guy got on the bus, and opened his very full and large coin purse to pay the fare.

The bus suddenly accelerated, and he lost his footing. He fell to the floor, dropping his open change purse. His money flew all over the place. He spent the next 30 minutes crawling around on his hands and knees looking for every last penny. He was reaching under people's legs, crawling under the seats.. and nobody said anything.

Image via @ Hidden Images

Listen to this...

Here's a quite bizarro observation from Chris:

When you take the same bus every day, you start to recognize the regulars.

Years ago when I was taking the 47 every day, one of the more memorable regulars was a creepy looking middle aged guy. He always had his headphones on, black greased back hair, ripped jacket, tight jeans. And always looking straight forward with a slight serial killer like grin on his face. Like he'd move his head but not his eyes.

I noticed him always looking at this quite attractive woman (another regular) whenever he got on the bus. Quite a few other people would steal glances in her direction, but the look on his face was quite strange.

One day he sat on the seat behind her and was staring intently at the back of her head for most of the trip. Suddenly, he takes off his headphones, and goes to place them on her head, while speaking in an incredibly creepy and psychotic voice - "listen to this.."

She freaked out and ran off the bus. He looked offended and put his headphones back on.

Image by @ Street Photographs

Great Pizza at a Great Price!

Here's a story from Brodie that could easily be a viral marketing campaign for Pizza Hotline, please make this ad "bunch of 2s"!

So anyone who rides the bus has seen the ads that are inside. One of the ads is for Pizza Hotline. Last week on the #18 a rather inebriated young man took a sheen to the Pizza Hotline ad, stood on his chair and proceeded to caress the pizza in the ad and than started singing the jingle (222 22 22 GREAT PIZZA AT A GREAT PRICE). He then started licking the ad and the bus driver kicked him in the Village where he wandered away into the night.

That reminds me of when I caught the downtown flyer to go to the forks last summer, and the bus was a special Hepatitis bus or something that was painted yellow, with only those "pee in a cup" ads up and down the aisle. The funny thing was, the whole bus also stunk like urine.

Smells like French Fries

Here's poor Katie's experience on the 47:

when I was 16 I had finally gotten my first job. It was in a Fast food restaurant that was 10 minutes away. I would ride the 47 to and from every shift. One evening I got on after a particularly long night and had noticed there was one incredibly drunk homeless looking man at the front of the bus switching seats quite quickly and frequently. He had been making poor attempts at non-creepy conversation with other riders but failed miserably.

As we got deeper into Transcona and about 5 stops away from home the man ended up behind me. He finally went silent for a minute until I felt and heard a large sniff by my left ear and then a loud whisper of "MMMM YOU SMELL LIKE FRENCH FRIIIIES!!" being 16 and alone I was instantly mortified and opted to get off a stop early to get away.

To this day I make sure to never get on a bus smelling like anything besides soap.

Image via @ Conasse

WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME: Bus Cellphone Etiquette

I'm sure we've all come across this at some point. I mean, talking on a headset or headphones rather than holding the cancerous cellphone directly to your head is always a good idea, but weird conversations like this are still always best to have in private! From GB:

Coming home from work one day, my boyfriend and I found ourselves sat on the front two seats, facing the line of fold-down sideways-facing seats, which were unoccupied. As we reached Osborne, a girl got on, sat on the sideways seat and said loudly "WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME?", while staring in our direction, towards everyone else on the bus. It took us (and the whole bus) a while to realize that she was wearing a cellphone headpiece and was arguing with some poor soul on the other end. The silence that came after her demand, along with the strange stare down the bus and the fact that the cellphone cord was hidden by her hair, put everyone on edge!

So, listen up crazies:
1) Those headphone things are meant for when you can't use your hands - if you're sat on the bus, just hold your phone to your ear! At least then it's obvious you're not picking a fight with a stranger (or maybe your are, we don't know who's on the other end. Bottom line: if it's not aimed at us, we don't care)
2) If you're going to talk into seemingly mid-air, don't stare at other people while you do it, it's just WEIRD.

I've also seen courteous people hold the mouthpiece part of their phone closer to their mouth, so a) they can speak quietly, and b) give everyone else the signal that they're not just talking to themselves.

The Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum of Hockey fans

Here's another story from Sam, with people again accosting her because of her beautiful hair!

I'll tell one last one then save some more for another day... It was game 3 in the playoffs and i was watching the score on my phone when these two guys (completely drunk) come sit near the back facing me. (I was sitting on the row of chairs facing the back door) They're talking about the game and wondering what the score is so politely i told them that I had the score and would let them know if anything changed. They were so excited and happy but then they got creepy. haha

One was telling the other "don't say anything to scare her away! we need her" while the other one kept saying "you have really nice hair, it looks so soft... can i touch it?". I definitely refused so his friend got upset and started getting mad at his buddy thinking I was going to leave with the score. So I listened to these guys argue and the one ask if he can take me home and PULL my hair. no thanks!

The One Woman Warrior!

Here's a weird story, in a series of weird stories from Sam:

So once upon a time I was bussing home from work (downtown to westwood) at about 10:30 pm on a weekday. Everything was pretty normal (which is weird from Winnipeg transit) until this rough looking woman comes staggering onto the bus and sits right beside me even though it is completely empty. She starts slurring a jumble of gibberish then starts stroking my hair. All while some guy in the background is trying to sell me drugs.

The woman then tells me I'm beautiful and continues stroking my hair. I try to move her hand but she slaps my arm away. So i sit there with some wasted woman stroking my hair and a sketchy random trying to sell me drugs all the way home. but wait! she then grabs my hand and starts screaming "I AM A ONE WOMAN WARRIOR, I AM A ONE WOMAN WARRIOR!" over and over. She got pretty upset when i said my stop was next and had to go and started crying "I'm going to remember you my girl and i have your back forever man". Thank you ma'am... thank you.

He Broke His Balls

Here's a bit of an insane story from Marcie:

It was a miserable February evening: frigid, windy, dark, and on the bus. I had been working at the University all day, and my brain was angry like a cat who's stomach just got touched (wide eyed, looks innocent enough, but her claws haven't been trimmed for weeks).

I sat at the front of the bus, ready to give up my seat for priority riders, when a heavily intoxicated man got on at York street. He was weaving around, trying to get his change out of his pocket, stalling the inevitable "I don't have enough change. I just need to get to Osborne" line. The bus driver stepped on the gas, and the drunk guy grabbed onto a pole and swung around, nearly hitting the sloshy, sloppy, gravel filled aisle, shouting "Hey bus driver! You nearly broke my balls!"

The ever articulate, and sauced up gentleman decided the spot beside me was the best seat for him to occupy. My claws came out, and were looking for the most expensive leather couch around to tear apart. He shouted, again, at the driver "You almost broke my balls!" I, eyes wide, tail poofed out, hair on the back of my neck like pins, shouted back "No one gives a fuck about your balls! Stop talking about your balls! Or I really will break them." Every single rider laughed. I just noticed my elevated heart rate, my overheated self in snow pants and scarf, and that I couldn't get the image of cracked walnuts out of my mind.

He stopped shouting. And, at my stop, I told the driver that "the guy sitting next to me is a total douche and making people uncomfortable." Justice was swift, and the driver kicked him off the bus.

Walking away from the stop, the deathly cold evening air helped perpetuate an eternal echo of the man at the bus stop shouting "He broke my balls, man!"

Orange Gunk?

Here's a strange story from Alice, what the heck?:

This happened a few months ago as I was still getting used to taking the bus home from university. Usually it should only take just over an hour but this day it took three and a half...I got off the first bus at Polo park and as usual, with my transfer, waited for the next bus to come. Only, I was off this day and somehow confused the "St. Charles" bus with the "Charleswood" bus and ended up taking an hour-long detour around Charleswood before being returned to the same exact bus stop I had left at Polo park an hour ago. By this time I was fuming. It was tough to keep back my frustration when upon actually boarding the St.Charles bus I just happened to be stuck standing beside a man whose left arm, up to his elbow, was completely covered in sticky orange cheezy gunk. Some how, I arrived home without any orange on me.