So I get the same bus every day during the week at the same time every morning. I’m currently in university and require all my texts throughout the day. Because of this I have a large, not obnoxious bag, that I put on the empty seat next to me. The bus gets maybe half-full by the time we get to the main terminal and I’m lucky to not have to transfer.
Well three stops before the terminal the same two middle-aged men who always stink of smoke, and usually blow their last puff into the bus doors, get on. One of them is now continually asking me to move my bag. At first I would ignore him and he’d go away. I’d make it look like I was listening to headphones but last week this old pervert actually tapped my shoulder and motioned at my bag. The bus was half-full, no window seats, but there were many other places to sit. I told him this and he cursed at me under his breath. I told him I was offended by his stink and not to touch me again and I’d rather stand than sit next to him. This was met by several hushed laughs toward the back of the bus. He then went up and said something to the driver. He quickly sat down in the first seat and kept moaning and groaning and half talking to himself.
I will move my bag when someone actually needs the seat but not so some pervert can try and get a closer look at me. And honestly shouldn’t reeking of smoke be considered not scent-free? -Can’t wait two more years
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2014.
Do you pay for two seats? No? Move the hell over. And have a little compassion.
On tonight’s opening card we have Self-entitled Twat vs. Smelly Perve. And in the immortal words of Henry the Chicken hawk – “it doesn’t matter who wins; we’ll fricassee the loser”.
When you’ve learned to make the perfectly tamped espresso, then you can be picky about your seat mates.
Actually, this makes you just as much of an asshole as him. You still feel entitled to use up an extra seat because poor you does not want to sit next to anybody. It has less to do with the condition of the guy asking. Yet, you expect this entitlement while you expect everyone else to give up the comfort of having an empty seat next to them.
Bottom line, if you need more than one seat, you should be standing.
It’s just that exaggerated sense of entitlement younger people are developing that was mentioned on the board already this week.
Yeah, I’d probably take your picture OB and put it on my Assholes Among Us column on the book face (friends only).
I’ve actually done it before. I know your type. Until you pay for two seats, move your shit.
I agree with the others.
Also, what the fuck makes you think old dude wanted to sit with you just because he wanted to shag you? You’re probably not a fraction of as attractive as you think you are.
Which of your psychic powers were invoked to immediately detect that someone, whose only, in your opinion, offence is that they smell of smoke, become a pervert?
If his John Thomas was hanging out, or he kept rubbing said JT, you might have a case, if not, go fuck yourself and your bag/man purse.
Ivan, I must’ve missed you at the Free Lyle Howe demo today, otherwise engaged or not interested in “seeing justice done”?
Yup, you lose this bitch OP, just because you’re busy and have tits doesn’t mean you get to hog up two seats. These pervs are probably holding the smoke in, to blow into your face and for no other reason just to spite you at this point. I’m no girl so no pervs are after me but this happens to me all the time, hell sometimes i’ll get up and tell said person the two seats are theirs because the people are so disgusting, I’d never deny someone a seat, the others are right that said old pervs paid for a ride and they can sit where they damn well please.
“Free Lyle Howe – with every purchase of family-size Rohypnol.
Baz – I was at the “Omar Khadr for Senator” rally. – Got to meet Justin Trudeau.
I, personally, think you’re totally justified, OP! Especially if there are a gazillion empty seats.
None of these posters apparently knows what it’s like to be a young woman alone on a bus (I assume you’re a woman); it’s totally uncomfortable when an older gentleman (reeking, no less of nasty smoke) sits directly beside you and tries to start a conversation when all you want to do is take the bus to school.
I hear ya, and I wouldn’t move my bag either. You go!
She wasn’t alone on the bus, she stated that there were enough people on the bus that there were no window seats lefts, but there were aisle seats. Using the ‘perv’ was a way to make her actions more justified, but she clearly stated that she supposedly needed the seats for her books, so I’m assuming even the most cleanest cut, quiet, polite person would also not have been welcome.
Entitlement.
emily: welcome to the real world.
I am, in fact, a young woman who took the bus for many years going back and forth to school. I, sometimes had many things with me (text books, laptop, etc…) whilst on the bus and I always managed to put my shit in my lap when people wanted to sit beside me. Old, young, male, female, smoker or non, I sucked it up because it’s called MASS transit, not ‘your personal limo service.’
I’ve had drunks sit beside me and hit on me and you know what I did? Put my earphones on and ignored them. It worked wonders.
Being a young woman is no excuse for acting like an asshole and it’s no reason to bury your head in the sand. OB needs to put her big panties on and learn how to deal with the cold hard realities of life — one of which: sitting by people you don’t want to on a bus (or other forms of public transportation).
add my 2 cents. no, you do not get two seats until the bus is totally (like totally) full.
you little priss. PUBLIC transit.
Another SET. You think because you’re young and female it gives you the right to use up two seats. As for the perv part, it’s females like you that give other females a bad name. You don’t like a guy, for whatever reason, and you call them a perv without one scintilla (Look it up in a dictionary SET) of evidence. I suppose if he accidentally touched you, you would cry sexual assault. Bottom line, it is a bus and when someone pays their fare, they can sit in ANY open seat. If you don’t like it, walk.
I don’t know, with the history of the one guy continually bothering her about her bag whlie there are plenty of bagless seats, then sit next to her (I can only assume that this has happened before) and try and chat her up while she has her ear buds in. I’d be pretty confident that the guy is a skeezy perv and, corect me if I’m wrong but, doesn’t that kind of repeated behavior border on harassment? You’re fucking right I’d wait till every last aisle seat without a bag on it was taken before I let someone sit there too. Fuck that fucking prev, he likely deserves to be made to feel uncomfortable for once!!!
Bunch of hypocrites, you always say, “if you don’t like something, speak the fuck up or, shut the fuck up” (of course I’m paraphrasing) , but when someone does, they’re an entitled twat!!!! You people are so fucking lame!!!
I re-read the bitch. she still sounds a little prissy but I am going to change sides.
if this guy does it all the time then she is using her book bag as protection from him. maybe so. maybe so.
op, the stop before they men get on, move to another seat already occupied by someone. sit in their empty side. problem solved.
but then you’d be on the aisle seat, and the smelly dude may stand next to you and rub his crotch on your shoulder.
I’m with you OP. This guys was just mad because you told him “no” instead of letting him have what he wants. I also place my bag on the seat next to me. If someone asks, I’ll move it unless there’s a reason I would prefer they didn’t sit with me (plenty of seats, disgusting odor, etc.). Paying for the bus isn’t paying for a seat, it’s paying for the opportunity to ride. Otherwise people would throw a fit every time they had to stand.
Good for you. What you did and your reaction to this dickwad is exactly what these jokers would be saying you SHOULD have done if you chose a candyass response and ended the text with a ‘next time’. We read about people being doormats all the time on LTWWB and the peanut gallery always chimes in with a ‘you wouldn’t do/say/have done fuckall if there was a next time’. Nice to see.
Consider the “vibrant” smells and sights on the bus as motivation to save up for a car. I know it’s not easy for students or people on a fixed income, but you have to expect transit to be unpleasant.
I love asking people to move their bags so I can sit. Then I broaden my shoulders just to make them even more uncomfortable…
This reminds me of the guy on the 80 that insisted he needed an entire seat for his grocery bag full of chocolate bars. Don’t worry sir, nobody will get in the way of your quest for diabetes.
I do this all the time. Bus half empty – why the hell do you need to sit next to me? I move the bag when the bus starts to fill up. Or if I’m near the front and a disabled or elderly person gets on – I move completely – which is more than a lot of people do. I agree with the others – if she said nothing you would have told her she was a whimp – she actually says something and now she is a twat, cunt, bitch – whatever other disgusting term your minature brains can come up with.
I agree with her – I do the same thing all the time. Bus half full – why the hell do you need to sit next to me? If the bus starts filling up I move the bag. Or – if I’m near the front and a disabled or elderly person gets on I move completely – which is more than a lot of people do. If she did nothing you would have called her a whimp etc – but instead she is a cunt, bitch, twat – whatever disgusting label your miniature brains can come up with.
Sounds like the driver told him to sit down and stop bother her, likely this is the guys mo. I don’t agree with her taken up two sits if the bus is full up but there is really no reason for Smokey Dude, not to go sit somewhere else.
I had an over-upholstered blond sit next to me this morning, even though there were other empty seats. She’s done it before, as well. So has the fine Nubian with the dark, sculpted eyebrows who looks for all the world like Julianne Hough doing Crazy Eyes. Y’know what I did? I moved my backpack and continued reading my book.
Y’know why? Because it’s PUBLIC FUCKING TRANSIT.
Does any one else get kinda sad when there are no window seats left and people don’t sit beside you? I mean, I like my space as much as the rest, but I can’t help but think “what’s wrong with me?”
🙁
No, PK. I love not having a seatmate. If they think the guy with close cropped iron grey hair and glasses, reading a war book, is a psycho killer, skeevy player or just plain stanky – that’s jake with me.
I don’t like sitting on the sideways seats. Hard on the back and neck and makes reading a little less comfortable. BUT, I would never dream of profiling the least attractive/educated passenger in a forward facing seat and demanding that he/she swap places so I can have a pleasant ride. That’d be downright nutty
Ob is a self centered cunt…rarely would i ever use that term, but today its deserved. I see idiots like her on the bus everyday. just as SHE is trying to prove some point(which you have no justification for) the man is trying to make a point as well, and rightly brought it to the attention of the bus driver. I would too, and i would have spoken up too about the bag being in a second seat, or just dumped it on the ground and sat down in its place. Bags go on lap or between feet on the floor….its in the metro transit guidelines. how much more black and white do you want it. it doesnt fucking matter how many empty seats are on the bus. grow the fuck up OB, dig your fat head out of your fat ass and stop being a cunt.
The best seats are not on the loser cruiser but in my car with a compadre in passenger seat going for coffee.
If there are still plenty of seats I agree OB and play it very similarly. You have my sympathy.
PRIVATE SPACE ON PUBLIC TRANSIT?
“The bus was half-full, no window seats, but there were many other places to sit. I told him I was offended by his stink and not to touch me again and I’d rather stand than sit next to him.” Can’t wait for two more years
What is the issue here? Clearly, it is the extent to which an individual is entitled to private space on public transit. While there are no strictly objective criteria which might determine the appropriate distance between passengers under all circumstances, there are mitigating factors in the present case – the availability of other seats and the stink of the pervert – such that there can be no question that “Can’t Wait” acted in accordance with the unwritten rules of proper social intercourse. Yes, that’s right, “Intercourse!” The next time tell the stinking perv to go intercourse himself.
By the way, what are you studying at university? I would recommend philosophy. I hope it’s not for a B.Comm.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I love how misguided people are about their belief of what is “their rights to personal space” that space consists of the current position you are in, it ends at the point where the air touches you. you are entitled LIVING space, but that could consitute a cardboard box really. Id highly recommend, if anyone is still in confusion as to what ACTUALLY consitutes their rights, to read the Charter of Rights. That doesnt cover a person’s belief that they should be able to occupy as much space as they feel comfortable with, despite the availability of other space to occupy as well. if bitch puts her book bag on the next seat and you want it, regardless of availabilty, knock the fucking books to the floor and take the space that you want to occupy within YOUR rights 😀
I think she (and I would have) just gotten up and went to the complete other side of the bus to sit if the dude wants to be such an insufferable ass.
It shows you don’t want to be anywhere near this jerkface.
Life’s bad enough without having to deal with that asshole.
Thanks for all the input. I’m actually the female university student 🙂
What were you reading, Nuk?
“50 Shades of Cumberbatch” or “Eat, Pray Queeve”
INTERCOURSE
Thinking it dealt with human heterosexual relations, Nuk was reading “Social Intercourse” and was crestfallen to learn that it dealt only with bike-car intercourse, a stunningly tedious subject but an easy mistake to make, at least for those with limited vocabularies.
Speaking of “intercourse,” it so happens that I have in fact read “Fifty Shades of Grey.” As is usually the case where I am concerned my intent related to my background in “philosophical psychology.” At least that’s what my Ph.D. adviser – very big on the philosophy of Jacques Maritain (a god in Catholic theological philosophy) – whose own structure of thought, (Maritains’s, not my thesis adviser) I hazarded to critique in keeping with my view that one must always be true to oneself, in philosophy as in other matters, regardless of the cost. To say that he responded with barely concealed irritation would be to understate the case but I believe, at least to some extent, he sympathized with my views and so hurled no career- devastating thunderbolts.
Anyway, I was talking about “Fifty Shades of Grey” which, of course, really IS all about sexual intercourse but – and this is important – from the female point of view. My focus was not lascivious but rather lay in determining whether the female’s perspective, in respect to intercourse, differed measurably from that of the male. I determined that it did.
There is the old saying – discredited in feminist circles, of course – to the effect that “anatomy is destiny.” But what does that mean? It means that one’s future, including one’s future feats of intercourse, is determined by the possession of a vagina or a penis. And the differences so determined are not restricted to their stark physical differences, the one penetrating and the other being penetrated. On the contrary, the entire conceptual frameworks of the sexes is determined by the possession of a vagina or penis resulting in the manner that the female is “in the world” which differs sharply its male counterpart. Further, the full conceptual framework of the female is inaccessible to that of the male, and vice versa. At the level of the psyche, we live to a great extent of incommensurable sexual solitudes, of incommensurable gender world-views.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” could never have been written by a heterosexual male. The entire ambience is “off-center” so to speak. While the female has a degree of animal lust comparable to that of the male, it is expressed in a different “key,” a different “register” if you prefer. We are different people which, of course, makes the world, in respect to both social and sexual intercourse, an object of considerable interest, even fascination.
Thank you for your patience and consideration.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
CORRECTION!!!
Paragraph 4, lines 9 – 10: “in” for “of” (twice) Damn!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!