Experiences We Share While Riding in a Public Utility Bus

Riding a bus to your school, work or anywhere else can be utterly boring especially if you go through the same route at the same time of the day in the same amount of time almost every day. At first you may do things such as sing in your mind or think a lot about lots of things but when boredom hits hard, you'll probably start to think of simple things around you and some of them are funny.

I used to ride the bus every day when I go to work. It was the same 30-minute travel time every noon. It was boring so I started to just observe around and found lots of funny things that could happen inside the bus. We don't usually mind them but we share these experiences a lot of times.

Sleeping inside a public utility bus is quite common especially if it takes around an hour or so to reach your destination. Have you experienced sleeping and then when you wake up, you're 30 minutes past where you should have been dropped off? You then travel back and sleep again finding yourself 30 minutes further back.

Here in the Philippines, a conductor guides the passengers where to sit. He also shouts out at the bus stops so that people who are waiting for a ride will know if this particular bus is the correct bus to take. Although the conductors are serious most of the time about what they're doing, they sometimes break some laughs from the passengers.

They handle the payments but when 8 or more people pay at the same time, the conductor sometimes gets too confused and he interchanges the tickets and the change among the passengers. It even gets annoying when you have paid your fare, the conductor will forget about it and ask for another payment from you even if you show him your ticket.

Sometimes, because of traveling the whole day, the conductor would forget the route of the bus. One time, I told the conductor to tell the driver that I'll be getting off at the next intersection. He said to me that it's still 30 minutes away when it's actually only a few feet away. He was totally confused as to where the bus is at that moment. We laughed it off.

During rush hour, people stand along the aisle of the bus. It's quite common that you exchange odors. It's quite disgusting as some would sweat a lot even in cool temperatures early in the morning. When you see the passengers of a packed bus alight, they look like they're ready to go home already since they look tired and dirty.

These are just some of our small experiences that we share with each other on our bus rides almost every day. We don't usually notice them. Some of them are happy some are not that happy, but amidst our differences these are small things that we are in common with.