1. Stop smoking.

Seriously, just stop. Now. Before I beat lung cancer to the punch and kill you myself. But, wait I can hear you now ‘people aren’t allowed to smoke on public transport’. Well, yes this is true but it doesn’t stop them smoking before they get on. Which they do. Or while you have to stand near them at the bus stop. Which they do.

I get it, they’re addicted, and they just need to suck in that last little bit of death before their 5 minute bus ride to the smoke shop to get more. I get that. I still think they’re fucking stupid. Yes, I get that they might have been smoking for 40 years and its hard to quit. I also don’t care. If these people want to smoke, that’s fine, I don’t actually care if they wish to die that way. But, and there is always a butt (usually flicked onto the sidewalk, still smoldering, just before they jump on the bus…). But, if they want to smoke, they should do it in their own home away from the people who prefer to inhale oxygen.

Have you ever had a smoker sit near you just after they’ve finished? If you have you’ll be fully aware that the cigarette smell doesn’t just vanish like the years on their clock.

Oh, but if they smoke before they get on the bus why do I have a problem? Why? Have you ever had a smoker sit near you (on a bus or otherwise) just after they’ve finished? If you have you’ll be fully aware that the cigarette smell doesn’t just vanish like the years on their clock. It gets into their dirty clothes and their matted hair and it holds on for dear life. And if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of having a smoker sit directly behind you blowing their vile fucking smokey breath over the back of your head for an entire bus trip then surely you have to be on my side.

EDIT: Just saw something on the news that cigarette manufacturers are going to have to sell their products in plain white packaging from 2012 onward. Fuck yeah. That is awesome. Now, just jack the price up three or four fold, and force smokers to also wear plain white packaging so that they can be easily avoided and we’ll be set.

2. Get a job.

Sure, the economy is up shit creek, and lots of people are unemployed, but that is not an excuse. How can you pick the unemployed? On the journey that I take each morning you can spot them easily. They’ll be the ones wearing clothes you wouldn’t journey to the dump in, they’ll be the ones who smell like a) last night’s dinner, b) this morning’s beer or c) like a dead rat is decomposing inside their flannelet shirt. See the next point for further elaboration on this point.

Not sure if they’re the “going to” or “coming from” pub clothes, I think its a mix if the odors are anything to go by.

Its not like these jobless folk are suited up for a job interview or even in attire that you’d wear to Centrelink to collect the dole. Nope, they’re in the pub clothes. Not sure if they’re the “going to” or “coming from” pub clothes, I think its a mix (if the odors are anything to go by). Sure if your life is so pathetic that you actually need to go to the pub at 7:45 on a Tuesday morning I do actually feel sorry for you. Sorry that you’re so fucking pathetic.

3. Bathe.

Water ain’t just for drinkin’. Take a fucking bath once in a while. If you sit down on the bus and my eyes start to water from the putrid stench emanating from your vicinity then you have a serious problem. Is it a cultural thing? If it is then its something you should have left on the doorstep before you came in, we have running water here, use it.

There was a time when this special level of personal hygiene was reserved for the big fat kid with the neck-beard and no friends.

With the lack of personal hygiene present on public transport its kind of amazing that people don’t catch things just by being near these people. There was a time when this special level of personal hygiene was reserved for the big fat kid with the neck-beard and no friends, but this time is no more. Now everyone is apparently allowed to smell like a rotting corpse in public. Yay team.

And while people can eat whatever they want, I don’t want to have to smell it on the morning bus. If I can smell what you ate for dinner the previous night you either need to invest in better cleaning products or change your diet. Or better yet, stay away from public transport.

I’ve been tempted to take bars of soap onto the bus and throw them at the smelly folk. This would serve two purposes. Firstly, I get the chance to inflict physical pain on them, secondly they can take the soap as my own gift to them and have a fucking bath.

4. Don’t take bus trips for easily walkable distances

The full bus fare isn’t exactly cheap, especially if your an international student (not entitled to concession). But if that’s the case why do so many morons get on the bus, pay full fair, and then get off two stops later. I can tell you now they most definitely spent more time waiting for the bus than they would have actually spent on the bus. And in the time they spent waiting they probably could have walked to their destination twice.

They aren’t even morbidly obese, or carrying furniture, or crippled, or old, or disabled. They’re just fucking lazy.

Near the end of my morning bus route there is a roundabout. There is a bus stop on one side of the roundabout, and another bus stop on the other side. I kid you not, people get on the bus at the first stop and get off at the next one. 30 seconds and $3.50 later. They aren’t even morbidly obese, or carrying furniture, or crippled, or old, or disabled. They’re just fucking lazy. People do the same thing going in the other direction on the way home. While its infuriating enough as it is, these people usually fall into one of the other categories in this list.

5. STFU.

While infinite silence on public transport would be complete bliss, its never going to happen, I have no huge issue with a certain level of chatter, after all a set of headphones and some music can take care of that. But teenage girls, oh my god they, like, totally, like, could talk the fucking ears off an elephant stuck four nautical miles off-shore.

High school might be as intellectually challenging as some of these people’s lives get.

Oh boo-fucking-hoo your life is so terrible, you poor thing you have to go to school. You hate it now, but believe me there will come a time when you wish you could go back to those simpler times. Then again, high school might be as intellectually challenging as some of these people’s lives get. Oh sad-sack you’ve got to work 3 hours this week, and you’ve got homework, how will you ever find time to socialise?

I’m sorry if those 3 piddly little hours of stacking shelves in Woolies disrupt your extravagant after-hours life, but if you’re like the rest of the teens around this joint your ‘night life’ is probably only one of a few things. The most likely choice is that you can’t get all tarted up like a severely underage sex worker to go late night shopping on a Thursday, or going hardcore and getting all tarted up to go and see the latest twilight bore-fest at the movies. The other possibility is that you miss out on going to some below-average party with underage drinking at the bogan-den of some dipshit from school with irresponsible/alcoholic/non-existent parents, to drink fooly-sik homemade punch made from the left overs from mummy and daddy’s wine cooler so that you’ve got some borderline vaguely interesting story which you can inflate to actually sound even remotely interesting all while giving the rest of the passengers on the bus the absolute and utter fucking shits with the moronic teenager rubbish that spews out your cake hole. How about you just shut the fuck up, no one cares what or who you did, where you did it or how far your story is from what actually didn’t maybe never kind of happen like totally awesome like sik eh.

…so that you’ve got some borderline vaguely interesting story which you can inflate to actually sound even remotely interesting all while giving the rest of the passengers on the bus the absolute and utter fucking shits…

School holidays are such an awesome school-student-free-public-transport-time. (And yes I’m aware its kind of stupid to make a point about somebody’s constant drivel with an incoherent piece of my own drivel. You really want to make a big deal about it? Bite me.)

6. Headphones.

This sort of follows on from the previous point. But why do people seem to believe that everyone wants to listen to the latest techno/dance/trance rubbish blaring from the tinny little speaker in their mobile phone. Headphones aren’t expensive, a $2 pair from Go-Lo are going to give you better sound quality than your shitty prepaid mobile phone and you won’t annoy the fuck out of everyone else.

Much like my soap solution above, I’ve considered buying a bucket load of dirt cheap headphones and giving them to people just so I don’t have to listen their horrid “music”.

Even worse than the wannabe Nokia DJs, are those who feel the need to go through and play each of the ring tones on their phone to choose a new one. And then they get stuck and can’t decide between a few so they play them some more, then they get bored and decide the built-in ring tones are no good anyway so they go back to searching through their ‘music’ collection to find a ring tone in there. After all this they finally find one, and they set it as their message tone, and proceed to message their friend siting next to them so that they get a reply and can listen to their newly assigned ring tone. And what did they pick? Justin Bieber. Fuck.