I wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to the driver and passengers of the #21 yesterday who neglected to offer up a seat when I limped painfully onto the bus at Bayers Lake with my toddler and stroller. I had torn my quadricep muscle minutes before when I lunged to stop my son from wandering into traffic (I get it: Bayers Lake is a death-trap to pedestrians, we won’t be back), and I could barely walk. The only open space was at the bottle-neck, near the rear door, which forced new passengers to squeeze past us to find a seat or exit. I would have folded up the stroller to make space, if I hadn’t been close to panicking about my injury, trying to keep my son calm, and figuring out how we were going to get home. Thanks, also to the passengers at the back of the bus who, evidently, didn’t learn how to take turns when they were children, and opted to ignore me as they all departed the bus in a stream. Making us watch and wait until the bus was nearly empty did help in one way: it brought me in close proximity to the only caring person on the bus, who offered to help me lower our stroller to the pavement; something I wasn’t physically capable of doing in my condition. So, with the exception of that single woman (who has the eternal gratitude of a mom in need), the rest of you can go to hell. Now I know what to expect from my fellow Haligonians. Fuck you. —Insult to Injury
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.
nothing worse than people not reading your mind when you really need them to.
No offense OB, I limp. Its an old injury & just because you were limping, doesn’t automatically mean you should assume you deserve special treatment.Also unless you were wet/covered in mud/ leaves in your hair etc….how the hell could anyone tell you had just fallen & hurt yourself ?
that’s sad but i don’t think it has anything to do with christmas. longpigs can be evil
I sympathize, but I’m sure if you would have asked nicely if someone could please spare their seat because you’d hurt yourself, someone would have been more than happy to help you out. Sounds like the bus was packed.
Yeah. Um, I had an accident where I tore my ACL, MCL and an old tendon injury in my ankle along with scraping a chunk of skin off my ankle (which later became infected) WHILE I WAS ON THE BUS, and no one helped me at all. I had to get up, limp over and grab the shoe that had fallen off and landed by the back door, the stuff that went flying out of my bag and get myself in a seat. Only after I was seated was I asked if I was ok by the driver.
People on busses are assholes, OB. Don’t expect anything on there if you don’t ask.
I’m hopping on a 21 in a half hour or so…the 21 does get packed… I take it several times a week and I’m frequently standing.
(though sometimes it’s just because there are single seats surrounded by people and I just don’t fit in them)
at least there WAS one kind person to help you out.
that’s more than I would have guessed.
“… with my toddler and stroller” Uh oh. That’s always troublesome.
Last part of what PK said.
PK is right, many a asshole travel by bus and some routes are worse then others, must be geography, mind you there is still some decent people who would help, paingirl is also right, this has nothing to do with Christmas, this all year around.
For christsake OP.. You’re not the center of the universe and nobody can read your mind. Why didn’t you simply ask someone nicely for a bit of help instead of being a passive-aggressive turd?
I’m disabled too OP. However i ALSO am not deluded into thinking that all eyes are on me waiting to see how they can best cater to me. People didn’t even notice you OP, or your kid. There were (you said it yourself) a million people on that bus. You were one out of that million.
If you need assistance, ask. Even if i could read minds i wouldn’t go out of my way to.
I am quite surprised that no one offered a seat to a lady with a child. I don’t take the bus, but I would think that a man would rise for a lady with child. I myself couldn’t sit comfortably while a lady or an older man or lady was standing next to me. What is wrong with people these days?
If you are injured, arms full of shopping, kid and stroller in tow, seems to me if there was ever a time to splurge for a cab it would have been then. Busses are “public transport”, nobody has an obligation to do anything for anyone. If you wanna be pissed, go ahead, it really makes no difference to anyone but you. I’m not trying to be an asshole, but you didn’t speak up, so nobody realized your predicament.
So you’re in a busy area with a lot of traffic and you had to lunge to prevent your toddler from running into traffic. Can you clarify a few things. Was there another child in the stroller? If not, why wasn’t your toddler in it. If there was, why weren’t you holding onto your toddler’s hand so they couldn’t wander into traffic.
It’s unfortunate whoever was sitting in the handicapped seats that didn’t need them, didn’t notice your predicament. However, I find it odd that you put yourself in more pain just to be “polite”. Usually people in need of the handicapped chairs don’t stand in the back, so you can see how it could confuse some people. You should have just asked someone for a seat, I really don’t see what the issue would be. “Excuse me, I just sprained my ankle quite bad, do you mind if I sit there?” would have worked very well.
Get used to it, because it will never change.
OP, the next time that you have an accident in the parking lot, leave it in your pants. I guarantee that the passengers on the bus will give you plenty of room to sit down.
hate to say this o.p., but there are a lt of phoney fuckers out there. and maybe they jsst thought you were oe too. yeah, i know how you feel tho, my back goes fucky on me sometimes, and gets rather painful. but i try not to let on, and go about life anyway.
Torn quadricep? and you could walk? Harper’s comment was right, that was the time to take a cab. If a cab was too expensive, surely you could have called somebody given your predicament. Definitely the time to ask for a favour.
Too bad you weren’t one of the stroller moms, you could’ve whipped out your welfare card and demanded special treatment.
*actually… quadriceps are 4 muscles… not one.
hence… QUADriceps.
Of the 4, I’d hope it was the vastus lateralis so that at least you could favor the other leg with as minimal pain as one could hope for with a blown quad.
Z3, trying to go way back here so my memory could be failing me … but my guess would be vastus intermedius if she did it while lunging forward … probably already had flexion at the hip and no medial or lateral rotation, so (I think) less likely to be the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis or vastus medialis.
OB, it sucks that you injured yourself … hope it heals quickly. It sucks that people didn’t recognize your predicament and offer up a seat … but, in future, if you should ever find yourself in a similar situation, and as Mel said, I suggest you just ask someone.
I also agree it would have been the time to ask for a drive … but with a little one in a stroller, she may not have had the required little person safety seat with her.
Little kids HAVE to be seated on the bus. Anyone who sees a toddler standing and doesn’t get up is a piece of shit. It is dangerous. As for your injured self, you gotta ask.