). i’ll start with the most recent and if there’s any interest post some more. this took place a few months ago. i had an appointment at the hospital for minor surgery. it was an outpatient procedure but annoyingly it was at a hospital way out of the city, rather than any of the three in the city centre. i don’t have a car so what should have been a 20 minute drive was an hour long bus journey.
my surgery was all done by about 4pm and i got on the bus home with a sore ear (they’d taken the back of an earring that had got stuck in there out); this meant i didn’t have my headphones on as it was too painful. this in turn meant i could overhear the conversation of the two men in front of me.
we were on the top deck, so i assume they were going all or most of the way, like i was. they were in their mid-20s i’d say, and were wearing suits. probably recent graduates, if they were taking the bus to and from anywhere that had a formal dress code. one of them was a little taller with dark hair and the other blond.
i was barely paying attention, but then i overhead the blond saying ‘i’m dying here, i really can’t hold on’. well- that piqued my interest! the guy was unable to sit still, fanning his legs back and forth and shifting in his seat. he was clearly desperate to pee.
(it was at this point that i wish i had one of those old fashioned ear horns since the rumble of the bus as it went over bad country roads drowned out a lot of what they were saying)
the darker-haired one said something like ‘well, what do you want to do? we won’t be back in town until 5 at least’, to which the blond replied, ‘i’ll just have to get off at the next stop. find a bush or something. i’m literally about to piss myself’.
as bad for the guy as i felt, i was really quite enjoying this. i also knew that the next stop wasn’t for a little while, and to make matters worse, it was kicking-out time for the schools. the traffic got thicker and the bus was stopping and starting all the time.
well, i won’t keep you on tenterhooks: the poor bloke didn’t make it. after a few more minutes of ‘i can’t hold on, i’m bursting, i’m dying here’, he suddenly jumped up. i heard the darker one go ‘oh no, mate,’ and i knew it was all over. piss spilled from him in a sudden rush and there was a puddle on the floor in seconds. i don’t know how long he peed for but he must have had a lot to drink. the bus turned a corner and the puddle slid down the floor and along to my row. the guy looked round at me- i was the only other person on the top deck, so i don’t think either of them had realised they weren’t alone, and began to apologise profusely. i said something like, ‘it’s fine, it’s all good, don’t worry about it’, and pretended to look at my phone to give him at least a bit of privacy and spare further humiliation (though i doubt that would be possible by now).
the darker haired one went down to tell the driver what happened, and they got off at the next stop. the driver apologised to me as well, and i went and sat on the lower deck, all the way back to my stop- by which point i was pretty desperate myself; it was a long journey! but thankfully i made it back home- unlike this poor guy.