One day a couple years ago, I was riding the TriMet bus, line 14, home from school. I was sitting towards the front of the bus, next to a rather small woman that I had seen on the bus before. All through the ride, she would half-say, half-hum, "Hmm!" in a very high pitch. My watchband had recently broken, so I was lacking a chronometer that day, and as we approached my stop, I asked,

"Could you give me the time?"

She responded,

"No, I'm sorry, I can't do that."

I smiled at her joke, but my smile faded as I realized she was serious.

"No, I can't do that do that. I just can't do that. I can't go around giving out that kind of information."

Luckily, she didn't seem overly offended, and we arrived quickly at my stop. I deemed it best not to ask questions of people who mumble to themselves.

Every morning, at a reasonable hour, I catch the bus to school.

No, wait, let's backtrack. I'm a computer prefect in the I.T. room at my school. I prowl around and press Alt-F4 when I see a flash game or similar being played by any of the hapless youngsters. This, understandably, earns me some deep, heartfelt grudges from the lower years of the school, and a member of such a year (henceforth known as 'Moron #1' in true mrpwase tradition) goes on my bus in the morning.

Let me tell you, this guy is annoying. Very annoying. My problem is that I seem to have some kind of aversion to hurting other people (physically, that is). I have nightmares about wrecking someone's face with a hammer or something. I get uncomfortable during that type of horror film. Overall, then, I'm not a very violent person. Whenever I get picked on, however, I get angry. I'm sure you have some idea of how clichèd teen anger/angst is, but...gah. It makes me mad.

So here I am, having caught the bus and put my headphones on, I realise with horror that Moron #1 has got on the bus. I didn't know he lived in this village. I start to sweat lightly with apprehension. Sure enough, he's seen me and has a stupid grin on his face. I brace for the worst. As if to confirm my fears, he turns to his friend and starts whispering - in plain view, don't you know.

Fortunately (or so I thought), I couldn't hear what he was saying since Rammstein were so thoughtfully riffing in my ears, but after a while the fact that I couldn't hear him started to worry me. My inner shallow attention whore wondered whether what he was saying would lower my social standing. My fists curl. I start to question myself - am I going to let this guy get away with this? Will I continue to sit (stand) here and take this blatant insult to my dignity?

I didn't so much have angels and devils on my shoulders as large angry robots inciting me on to acts of rampant slaughter. My knuckles pale. If I was an anime character, I would have had one massive sweat drop. I can't wait any more. My horror of violence wilted inside. I drew back my fist to strike, and...

The doors opened. The bus had arrived. Moron #1 had already left the bus. I composed myself and went on my way.

Incident: The day a man claiming to be Jesus started a conversation about the colour of the sky with himself.

Method of transportation: Bus.

Place: Manchester.

And I had to sit down next to him. People with bags piled on the seats next to them hadn't the decency to move them near their feet and budge up, but rather sneered at me as I sat down next to the most insane of people I've ever had the displeasure of "meeting". "Hello, my name is Jesus... the sky is blue today.. it was grey yesterday.. oh the wonders of life", I replied "yes" to his statement and attempted to block myself out of the situation and carry on reading my newspaper, an article "homosexuals in The UK" about an apparent struggle that it is to lead a normal life against the discrimination against homosexuals.

A young lady behind me started to giggle, and I started to sweat. If the humiliation of having to listen to a nutjob buzzing my ear wasn't enough, now I had to cope with being laughed at for reading a not very interesting article of which I was reading to mask my humiliation and use to block anybody else attempting to talk to me.

Bad move. I turned the page and there it was, a picture filling the entire of page 7 of a drag queen promoting a new drag club in town. The girl laughed even harder, my eyes were burning and my face red as a tomato at this point.

Now as a straight male, Im obviously not very secure with my sexuality so this hurt my ego significantly. The man was now banging his head against the window and I felt a headache coming on. I had to escape.

I got off at a stop half a mile from my usual stop, lit up a cigarette and said goodbye to the whole ordeal as it drove down the road.

That's the last time I'll get on one of those "peasant wagons" I told myself, but it was the first of many.

Ahh public transport and the humiliating events that it can bring.

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