Two Kinds of Bus Passenger
Keira Oliver
There are two kinds of people in this world. The first would never ever get on public transport in a million years. The other has to grin and bare it. I'm in the latter camp. Standing in a line of equally depressed people desperate to get home, I pray for the bus to arrive. To make matters worse, today the rain is pelting off the road like it's trying to give it a facelift. And worse again, it's Edinburgh in August.
Locals tend to handle the Festival in one of two ways. The first is to embrace it, take time off work, and eagerly drink overpriced beer while watching overrated comedians. The rest try to ignore it as best they can. I am the latter.
As I wait impatiently, I curse myself for not renting out my flat to some Bangkok Ladyboys so I could escape to the Caribbean where there would be sun and I would be the tourist. However, I have a survival plan (for the bus journey anyway) and congratulate myself on how cunning and clever it is. I've discovered a bus route that totally misses out Princes Street: the artillery road that, at this time of year, is so chock-full of tourists looking for the right change and directions to the castle (it's behind you) that it would give any Edinburgher a heart attack.
Shockingly, I realise that my secret is out when the bus arrives bursting with wet tourists, babbling Spanish students and harassed office workers. As soon as I get on board, I wilt like a daisy in a hothouse, and hope, against all odds, for a vacant seat before I faint.
As every Scot knows, there is a certain etiquette to follow as a bus passenger (not that the first group would know this, lucky gits). I like to think that I conduct myself with some decorum: never, ever, sitting next to someone, or even behind them, unless I absolutely have to and offering my seat to an old person (occasionally they look like you've just slapped them in the face, giving you evils all the way home for implying that they're too old to handle standing up). However, all sense of propriety goes out the window when the bus is heaving like this one. While the people in front of me shuffle up the bus, I nab an overlooked seat next to a woman with a pushchair.
Now this is an issue that definitely divides the city. Either you think that the elderly, the infirm, people with luggage, ridiculous numbers of Sainsbury's bags, buggies and all children should be banned from travelling, or you think that they have as every right to be there are the rest of us. Of course, I'm the latter.
The woman next to me looked like she could weep for inconveniencing everyone with her buggy. Her baby however was completely oblivious and beamed enthusiastically at all his fellow passengers. Smiling babies also tend to divide the nation. The first suddenly become very interested in the adverts above them for Debt Hotlines, while the others can't help but smile back. And maybe stick out their tongues playfully at them. I, of course, am the latter.
After a few minutes of swapping smiles, I realised that something else was going on on that bus. Something strange. This was unlike any bus I had ever been on. Normally, despite being full, the bus is silent (except maybe the git on a mobile deciding what to wear at the weekend). People stick their headphones in, read their book or stare out the window: anything rather than inadvertently catch someone's eye. But looking around, it was like the worst of the weather had brought out the best in my fellow passengers.
I noticed that people were talking to each other. The young mum struck up a conversation with me (to be honest it was a welcome distraction from the woman who was pressing her breasts into the side of my head). A well-dressed man was asking a tourist what he thought of Edinburgh and they joked that this was the closest they had been to any locals since they had arrived. Two women who hadn't seen each other in years suddenly started waving and trying to catch up over everyone's heads. When a man got on the bus and tried to use his staff pass instead of his bus pass, people actually laughed with him. And then the strangest thing of all happened. There are two kinds of bus passenger. The first do not speak to anyone for anything, while the other will at least thank the bus driver for the trip. I am the latter. I think it's only courteous. But I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. Half of the bus had been taken up by a load of Spanish kids here to 'learn English' (please, they speak it better than most natives and look smugly at everyone as if to say 'I could swear right in your face in three different languages and you wouldn't even know it.' Hats off to them, I say.) Two stops before mine, all of them got off and, I kid you not, every single one of them thanked the bus driver. It was an astonishing five minutes. When I got off at my stop, I'll admit that I was relieved to be escaping the humid air and smell of baby sick, but I left with a smile on my face (after thanking the driver, who smiled and said I was welcome: will wonders never cease?) I can't put my finger on what happened on that bus, but I do know that there would be two kinds of bus passenger on it. The first wouldn't recognise that journey for the uplifting, extraordinary experience that it was. While the second would go on to tell others of what had happened to them. I, of course, am the latter.
