4th December 2006
Humiliation
The traffic lights on Renfrew Street were at red so I took the opportunity to have a quick slug from my Lucozade bottle. As I did, a frail old muppet hobbled down the bus. She tapped at my cab door like the pitter-patter of a little moth at your bedroom window on a dark night.
"Driver," she squeaked, "isn't it great that we've got all these bars now!"
I almost spat my Lucozade all over the inside of the windscreen. "What? You like bars?" I asked, completely amazed.
"Oh yes! I don't know how I managed without them."
"So, you like a drink, then? Which bar is your favourite?"
She gave me a strange look and then said: "Well, probably this one here."
"You've got to be kidding! That's Destiny! That's a night club! You don't go in there do you?"
"No! This bar here," she said and tapped the handrail to which she was holding on to.
"Oh, bars! I though you meant...oh, never mind."
The lights turned green and I trundled round the corner to the bus stop. The little muppet must have thought I was bonkers asking which was her favourite 'handrail'. But even more bonkers was that she actually picked one! Bless her.
Before the muppet stepped off the bus, she turned to me and said: "This is a very shaky bus, driver. I think you should call your bus the vibrator bus."
Think I'm gonna hurl! Screw the Lucozade, now I need a double Jack Daniel's.
Eventually I made it down to Argyle Street and picked up, amongst other pond life and bottom feeders, a drunken frog-like girl.
"How much is it?" said Froggy and plopped two pound coins into the coin slot.
"Hang on, where are you going?" I asked.
"I don't fuckin' care!" she shouted and plopped another two pound coins into the slot.
"You want an All Day ticket? Is that it?"
"I don't fuckin' care!" she wailed again, and another two pound coins went plop.
"You want a Weekly ticket?"
"Fuck off! I don't fucking care, right?"
Without waiting for any ticket to be printed she turned and waddled away up the bus. "Cunt!" she shouted aimlessly. "Fucking cunt!" Then she sat down at the very back of the bus.
All bus drivers develop a sixth sense of impending trouble; like a canary down a mine shaft sniffing for gas, or a gold fish that goes nuts before an earthquake. With Froggy Girl's continued outbursts, I could sense the bus was primed and ready for meltdown - a tinderbox that just needed a single spark to set it off...
...Like a Ned!
And I got one. The loathsome fiend boarded at Glasgow Cross and was visibly disappointed that his desired seat at the back of the bus had been taken by the Frog.
"Cunts! You are all fuckin' cunts!" came the Frog as the Ned sat down on a vacant seat.
"It's you that's the fuckin' cunt!" was the Ned's reflex response.
The atmosphere on the bus ripened by the minute and by Farm Cross in Rutherglen my canary had fallen off it's perch and my goldfish had flipped out of it's bowl onto the floor.
"Hey, cunto!" shouted the Frog at the Ned.
The Ned turned and shot her a look that reminded me of a red dot from the laser sights on a rifle. The kind of look that says: 'You feelin lucky, punk? Well, do ya?'
"What you lookin' at ya fuckin' cunt!" bellowed Froggy.
With that the Ned's limited self control expired and he pulled the trigger. Jumping to his feet he bolted up to the back of the bus to give the Frog a damn good thrashing. My hand went to the emergency radio button to get help but something made me pause. Despite the fact that Neds are vermin, especially ones who think nothing of bashing up a female on a bus, I was overcome with a feeling of Nature taking it's course.
No, I don't mean I sat there and wet myself. What I mean is that I think of every shift as going 'on safari'. I drive through dangerous territory looking out for wild animals. Some want to fight you, others want to fuck you. Thus it has been for the last 3.4 billion years since life began.
Just like David Attenborough doesn't interfere when a Lion is tearing the throat out of a Gazelle, why should I interfere when a Ned wants to beat a froggy girl to a pulp? It's Nature's way. The strong survive and the weak must die. The State may provide artificial refuge for those on the fringes of society but on MY vehicle it is Natural Selection that reigns. That's right, you've got Charles Darwin driving your bus. Let the blood bath begin!
Or so it would have been if an old man with a walking stick hadn't jumped up and wrestled the Ned away. Ned and muppet were locked in a sumo-like embrace for a full two minutes as the Ned tried to get past, but the man muppet held firm. The Frog was but a hip replacement away from A&E.

Puny Ned boy loses scrummage to elderly Man Muppet while Froggy "The Cunt" Frogster bellows on.
The Ned wasn't finished though. He darted down the bus shouting "Driver, open the fuckin' door!" So I did and the Ned bolted off the bus. I saw him in my mirror run round to the back of the bus and pull the emergency door open so he could get at the Frog. Cunning little prick! There were screams from the rear of the bus as the Ned tried to climb up for a suitable punching angle.
It was then I decided that I couldn't be bothered with the paper work of an assault on my bus so I just accelerated away hoping the Ned would fall out the emergency door. And he did. Cool! He gave chase but I took a liberty with a red light and was clear.
Ten minutes later, completely unfazed by her near-pummeling, the Frog came down the bus to get off at her stop. "Driver, I think you've got a very sexy body, what time do you finish?" (You see? Fight or Fuck! It has always been the way!)
"Erm, too late for you I think."
"Can I just do anything I want to you? Would you let me? Would you just let me humiliate you?"
Is it just me or is there something off-putting about a girl who wears her clit on her sleeve? I decided to punish her by wearing my brain on mine.
"You like humiliation do you?" I asked.
"Aye! I'm into all that."
"Right, I'll go first. What's the capital city of Belgium?"
"Wha'?"
"Great! Now, what's seven times nine?"
"Um, swenty seven or something. Forty six? Why? What you talkin' about?"
"You feeling humiliated yet?"
"You're a bastard!" she said and left the bus.
She's right, you know. Humiliation really does feel good!