Bus drivers

"£4.50 please"
"Sorry I only have a tenner, but I have fifty pence"
"And I suppose you'll be wanting to pay with that too (like my friend before me), it's just ridiculous, the fifty pence doesn't make a difference does it!"

He hands me back five pound coins. If I wasn't so passive I should have apologised for the fact that ATMs don't yet dispense £4.50 notes.

I've had this so often with bus drivers, it's something that I find predictably annoying and amusing at the same time. I once hopped on the bus and out of politeness asked the bus driver if the bus went to Dundee, mainly initiate the forthcoming transaction. "What does it say on the front?", he cleverly retorted, smirking at his hi-vis mate who was stood just outside the door.

It did say Dundee, and I did notice it as I came into the station, but that's not the point. The point was that I'm not really arsed about what it said on the front, but I guess he really was. For him whatever city name was writ in those green lights, should be taken as gospel.

I can understand the attitude, though, if the customers you get trudging onto the bus are even remotely as moronic as those who we deal with in catering. Plus the bus I got today from Dundee to St Andrews was roasting hot. But why the heck should I pop in to a shop to buy an unnecessary chomp just to please this strange creature? If your ticket price is £4.50 then you should probably get in couple of 50p coins, just to be safe.

I've just realised why some older people flip and turn their bus passes on the machine for ages, struggling to achieve the *beep*- it's not because their hands aren't as nimble as they once were, or they can't work machines, it's because they're taking revenge on fifty years of smart aleck comments, of indifferent departures as people run and wave at the bus stop and of short changing.

I can't wait till I get a bus pass.

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