Weird stuff people do on the bus

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I have seen several times people pick their nose and eat their snot. Looks like public transport somehow induces that action. Maybe people are too bored.

Love these tales of wonder and the wide breadth of people out there.

Bully the hack out of special needs children, especially those who are autistic. That's pretty strange if those aids are supposed to make the ride easier for these kids.

I heard some kids goofing around on the back of a city bus. A boy yelled, "Quit messin' wi' my duke!" And a girl replied, "I ain't messin' wit yo duke!" Twenty years later, I still am not quite sure what a "duke" is.

My story isn't weird, just poignant. It was on a Sunday morning. I forgot where I was going but I was on the bus in a questionable neighbourhood. A woman and a young girl around 8 or 9 get on. When they sat down the little girl started singing to herself. Without listening to any music, she had the most pristine and accurate voice I'd ever heard in my life. Absolutely unbelievable. Oh, yeah. I was living and working in Far Rockaway, Queens at the time. I got to thinking, "Boy, I hope her mother does something with her daughter's voice, like get her to a manager or something. It'd be such a waste to have her go unnoticed." This was years ago. Hopefully she did something with that gift.

I just remembered another one.

I rode the bus home one evening, and there was this guy, built like an NFL lineman, who was on SOMETHING... after he got off we all breathed a sigh of relief and shared our theories about what he was high on. But anyway, he was attempting to freestyle rap almost at the top of his lungs, then suddenly would start wailing that Mr Mister song "Take... these broken wings... and learn to fly again..." and every single note he sang was out of tune. Then he stopped, surveyed his surroundings like he just remembered where he was, smiled and started rapping again. Everyone pretty much acted like he wasn't there, but I couldn't help it and started laughing. I thought it was funny but I think everyone else was actually scared. Or maybe they just didn't think it was funny.

I'm gonna ride the bus today and maybe pick up some more stories. Later.

I think where I live is pretty tame, compared to some on here - which is odd, considering some the areas my bus goes through, between my house and the city. The oddest thing that I've encountered is a woman sitting, near the front of the bus, in full view of the driver, chain smoking. We've had the smoking ban on public transport for several years and, before that, smokers had to sit at the back. Everyone, just stared at her and tutted, as they do in the UK. I think we were all wondering why the driver didn't stop the bus and throw her off, as they'd usually do. I've seen (or rather, smelled) a few people smoking on the bus before, but they've always been at the back, thinking nobody would know.

Once I was on a bus and a couple appearing to be a few years younger than me got on. They sat down about 2 meters away fro me and they both turned and looked at me, and turned away snickering to each other. They continued doing that for the entirety of the ride. More annoying than weird, I guess.

Another time I was standing on a crowded bus and this middle aged woman was staring at me. I looked away but she kept staring and I gave her an annoyed look in return. She then said something to a young girl who was also standing and the girl turned looked at me and turned back to her and nodded. No idea what that was about.

on another bus I was on, a woman (could have been anything between 20 and 40) sat down next to me. She picked up her phone and called someone and said she would be there in so and so long. Then she put away her phone and the entertainment began. She started chanting a Norwegian nursery rhyme and clapped her hands. She laughed excitedly and kept bursting out in laughter during the drive. When the bus got to my stop, she didn't rise up to let me off, she just retracted into her seat, so I had to push past her pretty close to her. I was uneasy, hoping she wasn't dangerous and that she'd suddenly hit me or bite me or anything.

Not on the bus, but on the tram there was a man once who asked out loud if anyone could exchange 1000 NOK (ca 166 USD, or ca 100 GBP).

On the subway station once a man came walking by, talking, muttering and yelling respectively about how much he heated Europeans and how badly they had treated the Indians and that "guests like that" he could do without. He had a real rant going there. As he passed people they got real quiet of course, staring stiffly at the ground, then followed his progress along the station once he passed. When he finally boarded a subway, some started laughing.

@Captain Trips 222 - You're pretty brave for laughing. There's always the chance he could've confronted you about it and no one would've been able to come to your rescue.

Two come to mind... one was a group of teenage girls and their ringleader was LOUDLY bragging about the horrible things she does to her parents, including stealing money from them and forging their cheques! I couldn't stand it any longer and called her out on it, saying, "I hope you realize how rotten of a person that makes you, and how illegal and terrible it is to do that." ...then SHE's the one to act like I was the rude one, retorting, "How DARE you listen to a private conversation!" *whisper*whisper*insult*whisper*rudecomment*

(Pity I'm not quick on comebacks and mention about how the whole dang bus heard her "private" conversation!)

Another was the woman who was strung out from some sort of substance abuse... she was screaming and hurling insults at everyone around, including spaces where no one stood at all. The whole bus clapped once she got off, still screaming about how we were all racist and hated her, etc.

A few times, drunken men of native descent kept confusing my wife for their own, asking what she'll be wearing to bed tonight and doing for them... WHILE she was sitting beside me with my arm around her! I almost always managed to get them to calm down and leave us alone while keeping things relatively friendly...

Blue Max' post reminded me of a conversation I heard on the subway station several years ago. This teenage boy (high school age) was talking to his mates, and he laughed and mentioned that he had called his grandfather and asked how he was doing., and that he had pretended concern for him. He told his mates his grandfather was pretty well off so he tried to condition him in hope of inheriting him when he died.
It made me sick just hearing it. Even on the off chance that he wasn't being serious (teenagers can be messed up, maybe he thought his callousness made him sound tough), it was still disgusting.
I never dreamt of butting in to tell this stranger what I thought though. No matter how un-private any conversation is, you just don't do that IMO.

I haven't really seen anything as dramatic as some of the incidents described on this thread, but a couple of times do stick out in my mind (these were both a number of years ago when I was in college):

There was a guy sitting near the front of the bus who felt compelled to make constant inappropriate comments to people entering and leaving the bus. When I was getting ready to leave I was standing up and pressed in fairly closely to a girl around my age.

The guy said, "Yeah...go ahead and rub up against her like that...that feels good, doesn't it?"

I wasn't doing anything close to "rubbing up against her." I guess it goes without saying that I was pretty uncomfortable.

The other time that I remember wasn't disturbing or really that weird, but it did stay in my memory. There was this really gregarious mentally impaired girl around my age who was sort of "chatting me up." At one point she told me straight out, "You're handsome!" and kept on sort of hitting on me during the rest of the bus ride. Sort of sweet, really. I didn't often have people tell me things like that.