Backus Packus Breakus Windows

Continuing with the recent backpack themed stories, here's one from Erik:

I was riding a half empty 11 down Portage Avenue several years ago. It was summer. It was hot and the bus had no air conditioning.

There was an annoying fly flying around the bus, landing on sticky, sweaty people causing them to pause from fanning themselves to brush the fly away.

There was one woman sitting up at the front in the sideways seats who was more skittish with the fly. She swatted furiously at it whenever it got near. Eventually it landed on the window next to her so she swung the large backpack that she was holding at it, trying to squish it on the window. She missed.

Her backpack must have contained something big and heavy because when it hit the window it made an incredible bang. It cracked the window in several places. The bus driver hit the brakes, leaned back and asked, "What the hell was that? I thought someone threw a brick at us!"

The woman hugged her backpack closer and got off the bus at the next stop with her head down. The fly continued to buzz around the bus landing on the sweaty, sticky people and the broken window.

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.

Backus Packus Smackus

Heather seems to have the same affliction as myself: being a weirdo magnet.

This incident actually resulted in me calling 311 to demand security guards placed on certain routes.
Addicts on the bus seem to plague me. Me and my daughter were heading home on the 47, I was sitting in the seat next to the stairs. This girl and her friend (I think it was her friend) sat in the seats next to me. This girl who sat closest to me must have been tripping out on drugs: she was shaking, constantly rummaging through her back pack, frantic about finding something. I couldn't help but glance, and make sure she wasn't going to wig out on me. I was just looking around out the windows. Apparently, to addicts, you can't even look slightly in their direction. "STOP STARING AT ME" she yelled at me. I didn't even know what to do. This girl was like a wild animal. I was afraid of making any sudden movements. She was so paranoid. She flinched and raised her hand everytime someone whisked past her or made a loud sound: like a laugh. The part that really scared me was when she got off the bus: she stood up and slammed her back pack into me and acted as if she didn't do anything or she didn't care. The scarier part was that there could have been needles in her back pack that may have poked me

"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.

Dr. Dave's Tips for Riding the Bus

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.

Spiders! On the Bus!

Here's a story from Kenton:

A few months ago, I found myself sitting behind Little Miss Muffet on a Winnipeg Transit bus.

I knew it was her, because she was wearing a sleeveless summer shirt, sensible shoes, and a big, black spider on the back of her neck.

No kidding. 

I looked a bit closer to make sure it wasn't a tattoo - it wasn't - and I weighed my options. Should I: 

• Brush it off;
• Blow on it;
• Squish it with my hand;
• Hit it with something;
• Tell her;
• Wait and see;
• Do absolutely nothing?

Having touched strangers' necks in the past and regretted it, I settled on just telling her, which seemed like a decent middle-ground thing to do. 

"Excuse me, young lass," I said, "but there appears to be a spider on your neck."

She sprung into the middle of the aisle, jumped up and down, screamed "Jesus Christ!" and flung the poor bastard across the bus. He never knew what hit him.

She dropped back onto her tuffet and hyperventilated.

I got off the bus, and as it pulled away, I whispered, "And she didn't even get a chance to thank me."

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:

The Female "Frank Booth"

After reading this story from Ashley, I immediately thought of Frank Booth from the film Blue Velvet. But it's about a girl. A teenage girl. Holy hell. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, please see the video embedded after the story:

And just when I think I’ve seen it all.

We’ve all seen the same people on the bus. The rowdy kids sticking their arms out the windows, the ones with the strollers forcing elderly people out of their seats so they can squeeze in, the ones who roll hand-made cigarettes, the drunks who try and sneak a sip of Lucky when they think no one is looking. But has anyone ever seen someone doing drugs? I have, and she’s not pretty.

Let me just describe the situation. It’s about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the 18 Jefferson is beyond full. I’m pretty sure the bus driver is turning people away because the bus was as packed as a mosh pit at a rock concert. I am in front of the back door, pressed up against people I don’t know and facing others I’d wished I wasn’t facing.

Then, this girl gets on. And this girl was crazy.

First, I hear her, from where I am, telling the driver “my friend has my transfer. She’s at the back of the bus.” Of course he lets her on - her friend has her transfer.

Then, she starts yelling at other passengers, “excuse me!” Now, I say yelling, because I shouldn’t be able to hear her from where I am. Then she tells her friend, “Hold onto me. I’m saying excuse me. If they don’t move, they’re rude.” No, they’re not rude, there just isn’t any room for people to move to. So, naturally, she starts pushing her way to where I am. She squeezes in with her friend in front of the back door and is now about an arms length away from me.

“I just bought so many pills! Yeah, look!” *Opens her purse and shakes around multiple pill bottles*

Uh. ‘Kay.

After screaming “whore” at a girl who got off the bus, the girl reaches into her purse and pulls out a small piece of paper and I now smell marijuana. I turn and look at her and as I turn back, I hear her tell her friends, “hold me up” and “cover me.” I can see her moving around some powder on what looked like a gum wrapper. Then she says, “It’s like people have never seen drugs before.” No, I’m sure they have, just not in the hands of a 16-year-old while riding public Transit during rush hour. But, that’s just a guess.

I’ll state here that I’ve never done drugs and know little, to nothing, about them.

I move back up onto the first stair and pretend to text on my phone when she and her two friends sit down in the three seats facing the back door but there were only two open seats so one girl sat on another girls lap. Little Miss Junkie then asked the elderly man beside her to move over. To where, the floor? He wasn’t taking up any more room than he was allowed. He looked at her and looked away without moving an inch. She turns back to her friends, “I asked him to move and he just looked at me.” Uh, DUH.

She starts pointing at someone and at first I think it’s me, and saying “What the f**k are you looking at? Don’t f**king look at me. Next time you look at me I’ll kick you a*s.” Then, thankfully, I figure out she isn’t talking about me and I make my way to the first open seat. I sit down and continue to look out the window and stare around the bus. But when I glance down at her for a second, I see her snorting whatever was in the gum wrapper and then stare blankly ahead.

She just snorted coke, on the bus, during rush hour.

Why do I assume it was coke? Because there was a nice white line of a chalky-looking substance smeared across her cheek, and I doubt she was snorting Rockets.