Free entertainment on the bus

[Dreamstalker]

I almost wasn't going to take the bus home today, but the thought of a Red Line train with broken AC changed that thought (ah, summer on public transit). So I toddle onto the 66 bus with a small pack of Harvard students.

There's a crazy woman near the back, ranting on about 9/11, a secret building there that didn't fall down until the next day, various coverups, religion, Buddhist terrorists (WTF?), assorted fun JFK conspiracies...somehow she managed to connect this all to a secret police installation in Cambridge and how "they" were trying to get rid of all the elderly if not everyone in the city by raising rent (newsflash: everyone's rent is going up around here).

She got into it with one of the Harvard kids. I was at the front of the bus, so all I could really hear was her screaming and the few occasions where he raised his voice to be heard over her.

That lady now has me questioning if the ex has cornered the market on whacko theories as I first thought. I now wish I had a recording device and had sat further back...

[Becks]

Hmmmmm...maybe I should start taking the bus once in a while.

[Sheldonrs]

Ahhh... I miss the buses and the T in MA. I love the red line especially since it crosses the Charles when the Harvard Crew are out. :-)

[marasbaras]

The market for whacko theories is too large. Can't corner it.

Besides, when someone gets close to cornering it ... someone else makes more.

[Dreamstalker]

Eh, every town (if not every block in some towns) probably has a whacko championship title. Some of what the ex spouts makes the other crazies in his neck of the woods seem sane.

[rerant]

I always have a hard time looking at the ranty people on public transit (or anywhere) without feeling bad for them.
I get so angry at people who laugh at them, antagonize them, or yell at them.
The fact that they have mental health problems isn't their fault, and I always want to do something to help them.

[wagegoth]

The only time they really bug me is when they start swearing. Honestly, I have an incredibly foul mouth; I am proud to announce that I embarrassed my career Navy ex-brother-in-law with my swearing. However, I know the time and place for it.

There have been people on BART (happily, my regular bus is not normally frequented by the wacko contingent) that were so loud and obnoxious in their swearing that there was no way I would have been able to have my kids in the same car. I'm not saying I've never used that kind of language around my kids, but I do not go into continuous, literally insane rants that use that kind of language for at least half of the words. And they do not stop talking. It goes on and on.

[Zombi]

The only time they really bug me is when they start swearing. Honestly, I have an incredibly foul mouth; I am proud to announce that I embarrassed my career Navy ex-brother-in-law with my swearing. However, I know the time and place for it.

Agreed. Since moving to the UK, I've really had to start watching my mouth. Though having said that, my mother and I have had conversations where every second word was 'f**k', but we're English teachers and we were discussing semantics.

[unclejampuff]

Ha, the same thing happened to me recently.. only it was a woman SCREAMING on the phone about how her boyfriend was at her house with another woman. It was so frickin juicy and hilarious.

[Samaliel]

I take the bus every day and most of the times, I don't have to worry about much more than thos annoying people who will listen to music frome their cellphones without headphones. But this one evening, a few weeks ago, I sit in the back of the bus at the terminal, waiting ofr it to leave. More passengers get on board. A bunch of teenagers, speaking loudly (and, yes, listening to music from a cellphone). Then, this woman comes in, apparently speaking with another lady.

I say apparently because in retrospect, it is obvious she was not talking to her. Sadly, it wasn't obvious she was talking to anybody in particular. As she seats herself, she goes on talking, and talking. At one point she tells... well, I thought she told the woman she came with, but I'm not quite sure now... she tells that the man in front of her looks like one of her friends. The bunch of teenagers begin to laugh under their breath.

At some point, she seems to talk to them, but only seems, because, as the teenagers were getting rude, and laughed at her, she said she wasn't talking to them. And when they got off, she started to comment onn how stupid they were, and what bratty kids they were and how her kids respected her.

And on she rambles, looking at another passenger, like she is talking to him. When the passenger replies, she states, once again, that she is not talking to him. Of all the 10 passengers in the back of that bus, I was the only one who kept my damn mout shut, because I was sure, would I have tried to tell her to snuff it, she would have told me she wasn't talking to me either.

At one point, I decided that she was too annoying, so I decided to get off the bus early and have a 10 minutes hike rather than enduring her raving ramblings until my stop. But by then, I was thinking : "Ma'am, you came in that bus talking, you sat there talking, and every and each time somebody tried to reply to you, you'd state that you weren't talking to them. So please, allow me to enquire, with all due respect, TO WHOM THE FUCK WERE YOU TALKING ?"

[KellyHabersham]

The most recent time I recall someone ranting on the bus was when I was coming home from work, and this older woman was going on about how someone was following the bus in their car, it should be illegal to stalk people like that,......etc. Then she started talking about people in America being selfish, how Ayn Rand had even written a book about it.......she switched back and forth between topics, and repeated the same things over and over.