You want to know how fucked up I am?
I’ll tell you how fucked up I am.
I commute to work by bus four to five days a week. It’s about an hour’s ride, and I hate it because it’s monotonous, smelly, noisy, uncomfortable and inconvenient. I don’t know who designed bus seats, for example, but I think it might have been the fucking Nazis.
There is one compensation: Most of the time, the bus is half empty, and I have room to spread out, put on the noise-canceling headphones and doze. But sometimes, for no particular reason I can discern, the bus fills up and seats get scarce.
This makes me unhappy.
Unhappier.
I hate sitting next to strangers.
Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I don’t want any bus friends, and I don’t like making small talk about the weather, politics or the economy when I could be sleeping. I especially don’t want to be forced to overhear the silly college students’ animated conversations about epistemology. Fuck epistemology. I don’t need to analyze how knowledge affects my beliefs and perceptions of truth. Plato, Socrates, Descartes and their epistemologically oriented buddies can go piss themselves. Handguns, cigarettes and Rush Limbaugh are bad and should be eliminated or, at the very least, disregarded. End of discussion. Class over. Now fuck off.
So, in order to protect myself from getting an unexpected seat buddy, I try to emit negative vibes that clearly communicate, “Don’t fucking sit next to me. I don’t care if this is the last open seat on the bus and you’re 89 fucking years old and pregnant with fucking triplets. Stand up for the next hour rather than sit next to me.”
I do this subtly—by putting on my sunglasses, closing my eyes and feigning sleep, scowling, and trying to look smelly or even contagious: “You don’t want to sit here! I’ve got syphilis! And it’s the new kind you can get just from sitting next to strangers on the bus!” I also refuse to move my backpack out of the empty seat next to me unless I’m asked, and I throw one leg out to the side like I fucking bought the seat next to me and the entire aisle it’s bolted to.
These tactics almost always work. Nobody dares to sit next to me.
But here’s where it gets weird for me.
As the bus lumbers from stop to stop and gradually fills up so much that people start taking any available seat except the one next to me, I inevitably start wondering, “Why isn’t anybody asking if this seat’s available? Am I that ugly and repulsive? Or am I scary, like the guy in the front row who mutters to himself and furiously scribbles notes on the backs of fliers he picked up at the bus stop? I don’t want to be shunned. Why won’t anybody sit here? What’s wrong with me?”
And that’s just fucked up. One part of my brain is loading the Ruger and psychically screaming, “Fuck off! Go away! You suck! Leave me alone!” And another part is getting misty and whimpering, “Take this seat! Pick me! I have a peanut butter sandwich in my backpack that we can share! Let’s talk about the weather—or epistemology, you decide!”
I don’t get it.
What am I, schizophrenic?
Maybe I need medication.
Extra medication.
Or perhaps I should just skip the fucking bus and drive to work. I hate those people who ride the bus to work with me.
Although, to be honest, I might miss them a little, too. Especially Joe, Steve and Norman, those lugnuts.
Oh, for God’s sake!
Fuck me.
My right arm used to twitch a lot whenever I road the bus. I wouldn’t put it past the Nazis for creating anything related to that vile mode of transportation.
I don’t know how to look smelly. I can look constipated, but not smelly.
It takes practice, but trust me, it’s pooable. I mean, doable.
Okay, that’s a bit scary, and not that you do it, but that it so closely matches my own bus behaviour. I am honestly beginning to wonder if we’re not related. If you tell me that you demand you chocolate milkshakes made with vanilla ice cream, I’m going to be convinced. My father, a pianist, did travel around a lot.
Mom got around a bit, too, bro!
You need to learn to fart on command. It’s easy with some practice and a greasy breakfast. Only the worst of the worst will sit next to you eliminating the possibility of some college freakazoid claiming that seat and wanting to discuss oh, I don’t know…epistemology!
Thanks for the tip, Red Raider! I will practice farting on command tonight with the wife and kids!
Open carry a handgun, smoke a cigarette, and wear a Rush Limbaugh tee shirt. That’ll keep people away from you.
More likely, it will make you the darling of the wrong set of passengers.
And that’s the last thing you want on a city bus.
The bus sucks and yes you may need meds. Would you like to share mine? I apologized to you on my blog.
Yes, I would like to share your meds. Just throw them into a cocktail mixer, blend ‘em up, and send ‘em my way via snail mail. And thank you.
You have my gratitude for writing something so honest, and funny, and incredible. I can relate one hundred percent and more than once did I bust the fuck out laughing when I read shit like this.
-So, in order to protect myself from getting an unexpected seat buddy, I try to emit negative vibes that clearly communicate, “Don’t fucking sit next to me. I don’t care if this is the last open seat on the bus and you’re 89 fucking years old and pregnant with fucking triplets. Stand up for the next hour rather than sit next to me.”-
Pure genius. Hat’s off to your writing style and sense of humor.
I think ultimately that’s what we as people have to maintain to keep sane and going in this fucked up world, a sense of humor. Life is too shitty to constantly worry about.
I cant’ stress enough how much you made my day. HIL AR IOUS.
We can’t make up our minds. We want to be left alone but then we complain because we’re alone and lonely. People get irritated when unexpected events occur but complain that their lives are too redundant and mundane. In a nutshell we as people are retraded.
But shit, when I can’t love life or myself I at least try to love relating with people, even if it’s total strangers on the internet (who write the funniest shit that just made my day).
Thanks, Stephen! You just made my weekend. And week. And month. I’m glad you laughed, and I agree with your assessment: We are a retarded people indeed.
lol you remind me of holdne caulfield and a little bit of myself, I hate when people talk to much but when they dont talk i hate it to
Sucks, don’t it?
I know exactly how you feel scower the internet there are millions just like you and me, i don’t know if this is comforting or disturbing but we are the majority.
I think it is comforting. Tonight, at least.
Jesus! )ou guys are so full of American bullshit although you do have a point! X
You are a gay and homophobic Nazi bastard! fuck you! and your lucky to have any friends if you do have any! you have know human decency! go back to mexico or wherever the fuck you came from.. better yet crawl up your mothers womb …who the fuck cares if she is a bigger bitch than you ashole!
Wow! This is insperational – I thought I was fucked-up, but compared to this asshole, I walk on water!
God bless you, whatever your name is, but please continue to motivate shitheads and assholes like us/me!!!
Moi, /Mikko
Uh, you’re welcome, Mikko.
I have not left the house in almost 2 years. I stay here in solitude because I am incapable of holding my tongue. If I think someone is stupid, I tell them. If someone has an accident that effects me (no matter how small)I curse them up one side and down the other. It is my belief that my service in the military caused this since I was not like this before. However, since the VA hires nothing but stupid people, I have no choice but to stay away from all of you for fear that you might turn out to be stupid. Does that sound fucked up?
It does, and it doesn’t. The world is full of stupid people. But it is not good to keep yourself locked up inside your house because of them. Try to find a way to get out, and hope that you can find somebody who isn’t stupid, somebody who won’t mind when you say what’s on your mind.
the world is fucked up. So many assholes and wankers.
im fucked too mate… nice shit u got in here i loved reading….im fucked because one day i got drunk and messaged daughter in her facebook that she is beautiful and i love her…fuck man i had to write this to some other girl but since i was drunk i missed it………..
That neighbour’s daughter man..in the above message………i was drunk i when i wrote that fuck yeeeeee
Thank God you clarified that, because I thought you might be even more fucked up than me for a minute there.
WELL, i have a remedy for ya!
go fuck yourself, you’ll feel better!
now fuck off you idiot, why are you taking your fucking bus so fucking serious?, Dont you have any other thing to think about…?
asshole!
Haha!
And that is why you don’t want people sitting next to you on a bus.
Maybe he did, and that really worries me.
I feel your pain brother.Seems like the worlds gone to shit & no-one knows it.
The world is fucked up.
What many people don’t know and what Lisa Olson’s Pregnancy Miracle teaches is that in order for you to get pregnant the way that nature intended you need to take a whole boy or “holistic” approach to treating your infertility. Actually, you aren’t just treating your infertility, you are making your entire body more healthy in the assurance that a healthy body will allow you to become pregnant quickly and easily and carry your baby to term.
Normally, I delete spam comments. But I like this one, so I’m leaving it.
I don’t mean to be rude or something but try riding a bus for work everyday 6 days a week 2 hrs up and 2 hrs down . Total 4 hrs everyday in 33-38′ C heat and very high humidity in public buses of India .Oh did I mention most of the time there are no empty seats and bus gets packed like sardines and you have to stand all the way.
And this is only the story of my commute to work , leaving aside my workplace issues and peanuts salary .
And you think you are fucked up !
There are people who do this everyday with a smile on their face .
Forgive me for my poor english .
This is me, all over.
We are one.
Sounds perfectly normal to me.
It’s normal to me.
I love this ‘fucked’ up writing. Same has been happening to me and I was so able to relate it what you wrote. Very well articulated and very true. Do read the article on “Everything is fucked, everything is ok”, if you all get time sometime.
take care
Thank you kindly, Ayush. I think I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who feels this way from time-t0-time.