Home | Forum | RSS/XML

Blog Index

It had been a relatively quiet evening. The highlight so far had been a little blobby woman who went upstairs and decided to have a fly cigarette. She walked up and down opening all the windows (a sure sign of imminent puffing) before she sat down and lit up. Every time she exhaled smoke from her lungs she stood up and furiously flapped the vapours away as though she were being attacked be a swarm of killer bees. Delightful to watch.

Letting her stay on the bus seemed to be a far more amusing prospect than throwing her off. In fact I was swerving around the road so much as I laughed at her on my CCTV screen that two cars hit their horn as they saw me drifting towards them. Proof positive that smokers can seriously damage the health of those around them.

At the top of Byres Road I picked up a middle aged man with a crazy mad-scientist hair style. "Drive safely now," he said as he flashed his travel pass at me. The fella' walked away up the bus mumbling something about "A good driver is a safe driver." He wasn't under the influence, but as I came to discover, the only thing he was drunk on was the entertainment prowess of a certain Michael Crawford.

"Michael Crawford!" exclaimed the man to no one in particular. "He gave so much when you think about it. An unbalanced extrovert, one minute you're up in the clouds, next minute you're suicidal. What an entertainer!" He looked around for a reaction and an attractive woman across the aisle actually nodded and smiled. With that, the man must have thought he was 'in'.

"Take that time on Alright on the Night," said the man. "He was on the high wire and, and, and...ha ha ha!"

"Yes?" said the woman, chuckling.

"He was on the high wire and, and...he fell!"

"Oh?"

"He fell and fucked his hip."

"Oh."

The profanity made the woman embarrassed and she looked away out the window. Realizing he had just lost his audience the man rounded off his folderol with a sigh "Ahh, Michael Crawford. He gave so much."

Silly bastard! If it weren't for that mistimed and completely unnecessary expletive he might actually have pulled.

As I approached the terminus the smoking woman upstairs was still flailing around as though she were on fire. She then threw her cigarette end out the window and came down the stairs to get off.

"Slut!" she said as I opened the doors.

Yes, to the uninitiated she did just call me a slut. In fact, verbal laziness in Glasgow has pummeled the phrase 'Thanks a lot' into something that sounds like a slang term for a woman of loose morals. I shudder to think how many verbally lazy passengers have smiled a slut at me as they left the vehicle. How very kind.

OK, now what the hell is that walking towards my bus?

A middle aged woman in a low cut white dress was teetering along the road in heels which seemed desperately uncomfortable. Although her tan was mediterranean and her hat of Royal Ascot, her tongue was most definitely Drumchapel.

"Oh! Jesus Christ!" she said as I opened the doors. "Might have known it would start pissing just as I come oot the hoose!"

"Is that the rain on?" I asked somewhat sarcastically as I was sitting there with windscreen wipers on.

"Oh, fuckin' aye!" she scowled and made as if to adjust her bra. A waste of time I thought because her cups were quite empty. A looker she was not.

I'm afraid the woman was quite abominable. Her leathery skin was knotted and cratered with pock marks, cankers and boils. Around her mouth was garnished with a generous bloom of barnacles and, as she took her ticket, I saw that her fingers were guilded in nicotine yellow which complemented the jaundiced whites of her eyes.

Part of me recoiled in terror at this affront to the sensibilities. But strangely, another part of me exulted in her degeneracy - and wanted more. Yes, the darker recesses of my psyche found her perversely delicious and wanted to feast on her repugnance; wanted to bathe in it; wanted to roll in it; wanted to spread it thinly on hot buttered toast. She was Vegemite incarnate.

To sum her up in one word I would have to say gargillic. I'm not sure that's a valid adjective but with no redeeming features she was every bit the gargoyle to unprejudiced eyes. Never such a foe.

Half way along Great Western Road I stopped to let an old muppet on. As I printed her ticket, the Gargoyle came clip-clopping down the bus.

"Driver, I need to get to Hyndland Parish Church. Can you tell me where it is?"

"I don't know where it is."

"That's terrible! You don't know your own bloody route!" growled the 'goyle.

"I know my route but I don't know where Hyndland Parish Church is."

"Is that it there?" she said and pointed to a church at the top of Byres Road.

"No. That church has been converted into a pub."

"A pub? Are you being cheeky, son?"

At this point the muppet who had just boarded decided to busy-body herself into the conversation.

"What are you looking for?" she asked the Gargoyle.

"Hyndland Parish Church."

"I think that's it there," and she pointed to the Church at the top of Byres Road.

"Ha!" shouted the 'goyle and shot me a look. "He said it was a fuckin' pub!"

The Gargoyle removed herself from the bus and walked briskly across the road. As she went, her empty gray mammaries whipped and gangled like empty hot water bottles and made me hungry for pita bread.

"I think she's had a few already! Hee, hee!" said the muppet.

The look on the Gargoyle's face was priceless as she neared the "church" only to find a dozen people sitting outside in the beer garden getting drunk. Yes, that's right, it IS a pub! A valuable lesson was learned by the Gargoyle today - Never Trust Muppets. Ever.

God only knows why the 'goyle was looking for Hyndland Parish Church at that time of night. The most likely explanation is that she was the bride at a secret gargoyle wedding on the roof tops of Glasgow's gothic architecture.

It all quieted down after that. Until at London Road where an old man fell as he tried to board the bus and smacked his head on my cab door. Wump! He seemed OK but he must have dislodged a few clumps of brain into his sinuses because after he sat down he blew out the contents of each nostril on to the floor of the bus. Better out than in as Grandma' used to say.

Got back to the depot at the end of my shift just as some red-eyed early shifters were staggering in to start theirs. Poor chaps. The only advantage of being ripped from the womb at such an un-Godly hour is that you are forced out of bed before your cock has a chance to wake up. Yes, it's far easier to force a bowl of Rice-Krispies down your neck at 4am without having a palsied hand.