Tales from the 222
Buses seem to take quite a prominent role in my life at the moment what with all the buses that go past me when I'm walking to university, and the many late-night bus journies I take home from various nights in the union or out and about in Uxbridge. I actually thought I'd pretty much seen it all as far as bus journies go: tramps with Tourettes syndrome, TFL hit squads, crazy old people and even the odd bus driver who likes to be rewarded with one of David's 'Good Work' stickers which he often feels the need to hand out in order (I assume) to cause me as much embarassment as possible on our rather random shopping trips... Now I'm not here laying claim to experiencing bus journies any stranger or more surreal than anyone else reading this blog, but I ask ye all this: have you ever been on a bus that's gone the wrong way?
I must say it came as something of a shock on my way back from Sainsbury's on the good ol' 222 from Uxbridge when coming out of West Drayton Station the bus driver decided to turn right instead of left and head back exactly the way he had just come. Not only did this cause something of a stir among the encumbant passangers on board (not least in the family of chavs with attendant small children coming out of their ears), but the bus driver had the audacity to pretend he hadn't even made a mistake! When the kindly old man sitting at the front finally pulled himself to the front of the bus to ask the driver what exactly he was doing, and indeed what he had been smoking of late to make him so absent-minded, the bus driver assured us all it was fine and that he would turn round at the next set of traffic lights. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the Cowley Road traffic lights at Yiewsley library, I must point out here that doing a U-turn with very fast moving two-way traffic on a 40mph duel carriageway is rather difficult, (not to mention illegal), manoeuvre at the best of times, not least with a 7.5 ton bus full of angry chavs, screaming children and students laden down with bags of Weetabix and baked beans. I can only say I am thankful that the driver was able to turn us around with only one single reverse needed, and to the cause of no injury in what was a very fortunately quiet time on the Cowley Road.
And to think following all of this the bus driver decided to continue on as normal pretending nothing had happened, and even stopping at all the same stops over again to pick up passengers on the way. To be honest I'm just thankful that bendy-buses haven't reached Hillingdon yet. If they had, it would be safe to say we'd have been well and truly beached at the Yiewsley traffic lights with our incompetant driver at the helm.
You've gotta' laugh :)