The bus incident - A smelly tale

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Hi everyone,

So tonight I caught the bus into town because it's generally very convenient and easy. As I was walking into the bustop I saw this real dirty looking hippy guy about my age or possibly a tad older enter the terminal walkway just ahead of me. There are some stairs that descend from the road level to the busway and I was walking just behind him the whole way down. This guy produced the most god awful stench (yeah that's right, not a smell but a stench) in a 10 metre radius around his person. To describe it, it was like a combination of heavily used sports equipment, two week old moulding tomatoe sandwiches and alcohol.

So anyway, by the time the bus arrives I am already standing as far as possible away from this guy and thinking about my best seating strategy for avoiding having him sit anywhere near me. As I get on, I realise the bus is completely packed and I have no choice but to sit all the way down the back. "Mr Stench" boards behind me and stands up the front while heads turn towards him and faces squint. So the bus drives a little way to the next stop and this guy decides it would be a good idea to find himself a seat...up the back.

I was sitting in the exact middle of the very back bench with one person on either side of me. It is a five seater and then the isle has two seats per side. There was one free seat to the front right of me on one of the two seater rows. "Mr Stench" walks up casually and says to me "evening my brothers...something something" and makes it clear he wants the seat between me and the other guy. So I say to him "What are you doing man? Just sit down." Now I said this is a very stern way while looking into his eyes. He was so suprised he could only manage a really pathetic comeback and then took the seat in front of me.

If he had persisted, I would absolutely without doubt have grabbed him by the collar and thrown him down the isle! This guy STUNK! Everyone on the bus was looking around, checking under their shoes etc. I can't believe he expected to get anywhere near me smelling like that and was suprised by my clearly unwelcoming manner.

Would anyone else have done the same? I don't care if people want to spend their lives in a different way and not shower for three weeks, but don't f*****g sit next to me!

was he a homeless guy or just some regular guy who hasn't heard of the wonderful magic of soap?

He was not homeless. Just extremely lazy.

(In other words, his state is clearly by choice and I don't pity him. He is not helpless.)

Hippies don't do a thing for me.

Sounds more like a homeless guy to me. They wear surprisingly nice clothes sometimes. I've never met a hippy that smelled that bad.

However, I do apologize to the decent hippies who post here. I'm just from a slightly different time from you men and women. I hope I didn't offend you.

Hippies aren't that bad they just smell of Patchouli oil which can mask almost anything

The problem with public transport is that it assumes that people don't mind being confined in a small space with no control over the other people or circumstances with which they are confined.

I have to use public transport as I cannot afford a vehicle. About the most positive sentiment I have been able to muster relating to public transport is mild reluctance.

He was in his mid twenties. Australia has an excellent social security/welfare system. No-one has to be homeless if they don't want to be.

girl7000: I'm chuckling softly at that subtlety.

Doesn't matter. Most homeless people are mentally ill, and THAT is why they're homeless, not because they don't have services.

There's a homeless man who goes to my clubhouse, which is for people with mental illnesses. The boss, Janet and him made a deal that he's allowed to eat lunch if he takes a shower. He's very unaware that he needs to take a shower. He sleeps underneath a blanket at the front of the clubhouse, every night where the rain cover is. I feel very sorry for him. He was offered a place to live, but he turned the offer down. I'd have him live with me, but my landlord says that there's to be only one tenent a room, unless you're married.

I would have to have moved. I would have stood up and gone somewhere else, lol.
Strong smells make me feel nauseous and dizzy.
I used to be quite decent around smelly homeless people, trying to spare their feelings etc, but when I dont have a choice about it...

Smelly people make me sick. There are people who come into the library reeking, either of body odor or raunchy perfume or cologne.

The mentally ill are just as capable of making choices as anyone else, whether or not they are good choices is another matter. I get that many of you feel sorry for him but there was no other seat for me to move to. I either had to let him sit next to me and absorb some of his stench into my clothing or prevent it from happening. I made the decision.

of course not ( you're Bazza's old China) and the best thing about we 'decent' hippies that post here is you don't have to smell us. . .

Merle

Actually, I felt more sorry for you than I did for him, I was just pointing out that he really was most likely homeless.