Does anyone have any funny, interesting stories of mass transit experiences?

I was mooned by a homeless man.

I decided to piss overboard whilst on a cross channel ferry, the wind changed….so did my luck :¬(

This isn’t funny, but something interesting did happen to me when I was taking a Greyhound from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo, CA. A little back story needs to be told first.

After I graduated high school I went to Las Vegas to live with my best friend. We both got a job as ushers at Caesar’s Palace for the Sugar Ray Leonard/Thomas Hearns match (in 1989). After the match my friend and I met two (hot) amateur boxers from Boston. We hung out for the night with these guys and communicated by phone and mail with them afterwards for several months.

When I got on that Greyhound in California about a year after meeting these guys, one of the amateur boxers happened to be on the bus. Unfortunately not the one I was interested in. This experience reminded me of what a small world we live in. I couldn’t believe we had crossed paths like that. We hadn’t talked for months and neither knew I had moved to California.

Blackberry sorry for you!!! Believe it or not, my first week in NYC I was flashed by some guy right in front of my school, The Fashion Institute of Technology! I laughed. A part of me never really saw it. I had some sort of visual amnesia brought on by the experience. I can still see his trench coat though. That shows you what a fashionista I am, lol.

ucme Hmmm….the last story of yours that I read on Fluther you were shitting on yourself, now it’s pissing…I sense a trend.

jonsblond God that is such a coincidence!!! You must have thought you were seeing things. and then your second thought must have been, why couldn’t it have been the other one?? I had a really interesting experience last year that I just remembered from reading your story. I was waiting at a train station I never go to and I was on my way to work. I saw someone talking on his phone and saying he was going to go to Hoboken and then on to Penn Station (NYC) He got off the phone and I said, I hope you don’t mind but I overheard you and you don’t have to go to Hoboken, you can switch in Secaucus and it’s faster. So then we got into a very interesting conversation. He was from out of town visiting a female friend that he was very close with. (not a girlfriend, he was gay, as I found out later) He was an older man, 40ish but very, very handsome and with a great aura, a great personality. So we get on the train and we start talking about all kinds of things. And it turns out that he is a “professional” psychic. I could believe it because he was very perceptive and not like anyone I have ever met before. It was like he “saw” me and we instantly connected. I really enjoyed the conversation into Manhattan and I hit him up for a free mind reading before we parted, lol. He said it was hard to hear my thoughts because there were so many people around. Anyways, we said goodbye and he really made me feel good.

Fast forward about a week later. Now I am on my way home. Not the train I usually take, again. I am sitting and reading when I hear a familiar voice. Some man talking to the conductor. I look up and it’s him!!! I look over to say hi and he blinks and then says, “I know you!!!” It was so funny. By the time I got off the train we had had another really great conversation. He told me that he might be getting a show on the travel channel. He also has a burlesque club. He gave me his business card. He told me he was ragged from having psychic readings with supermodels all day in Manhattan. It was so funny! The best part was when he started to sing to me! He sang “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets!!!”...holy shit, I almost died! I thought I was dreaming. Stuff like this never happens to me. I think I may run into him again some day. He told me to email him but I lost his businesscard. Damn, I forgot his name. He was really fun.

In college we went to the Dominican Republic for spring break. The flight was changed at the last minute to land at the South side of the Island, and we were staying on the North side so they rented a bus to ship us across the country. That was the wildest bus ride ever. We saw things I never thought I would see. Shacks you could see through with Cadillacs in the driveway, guys patrolling the businesses with shotguns. It was wild.

@Blackberry‘s answer just reminded me of my travels during our honeymoon. We drove from central Illinois to Gatlinburg, TN with “just married” written on the side passenger windows of our car. I guess having that written on your car is an invitation to get mooned. We were mooned by 3 different vehicles on the way to TN. I’m not kidding!

What a lovely story @Earthgirl! I love traveling and getting the chance to meet people I may not normally get to meet.

Adirondackwannabe Tell me more! This sounds intriguing, don’t tease me!

Everybody knows the way that is.

The vehicles were terrible, way underpowered. The country is mountainous. A motorcycle got behind us. It passed us on every uphill, we passed it on every downhill, all the time singing to the motorcycle the areaba song.

jonsblond That’s so funny! Newlyweds get accosted on all fronts. Funny I was just watching a movie last night called Drums Along the Mohawk with Henry Fonda. It’s set during pioneer days. The couple is on their wedding night and the tavern owner starts pestering them and trying to find out how long they’ve been married. Henry says, “oh, not too long, not too long…” like he’s hedging. The tavern owner keeps prying and then when he finds out it’s their honeymoon crows it all over the bar, lol. Some things never change, right?

Adirondackwannabe That’s so funny. I love it. But WTF is the areaba song? I know without hearing it that it has to be funny! Is it like Speedy Gonzalez?

@Earthgirl Yes it is. We also had to park under lights every time we stopped or the bus would get robbed. And it’s really wild in the interior of the country.

dappledleaves I have always loved train songs. Both songs that have train related lyrics and songs that imitate the feel and sound of trains. One of my favorites is Sonya Kitchell, Train. (sorry but there’s no video I can find) I also love lots of bluegrass songs that imitate trains. Here’s another favorite.

Adirondackwannabe It sounds like one of those experiences that is only funny in hindsight.

@Earthgirl Not really. We were college kids, we didn’t care. That was totally fun.

My 17 year old daughter and I took a bus to Las Vegas to see my Aunt on her birthday.
After the celebration, we went back to the bus depot. While we were standing in line, this crazy fuck struts through the station, yelling that he had just one-punched a man to death! A small crowd was standing around a man on the ground outside, and the crazy dude starts yelling to everyone “No one touch him! He’s mine!”
Yep, he had killed him. It was in the papers a few days later.

If you ever ride the 358 in Seattle, you will pick up at least a story a week. Maybe it’s the guy who came on with half a beer in hand and the driver only chided him for not bringing enough for everyone. Maybe you get karaoke. Maybe just crack/meth-heads. Regardless, it’s rarely dull on the Jerry Springer bus (as my wife calls it).

In the late 80s I would ride the bus from Chicago’s Ukrainian Village towards the Gold Coast every morning. A lot of old Ukie women would ride the bus with vacuum cleaners. I asked a friend, “Is there a vacuum repair store down there?”

“No, dummy, They’re cleaning ladies!”

I was on the bus once, and these two really unkempt hobos were on. One of them was chewing gum, and he took it out of his mouth and gave it to his friend. He says, here, it kills breath. The other guy takes it and puts it in his mouth and starts chewing. Urk.

Took a bus from Seattle going to Washington DC years ago. Took 3 days. Something happened along the way though. When we stopped at St. Paul, Minnesota, I saw this young, exotic, attractive woman waiting to get on. She took the seat next to me. It was snowing heavily as the bus went on its merry way to Chicago. It was so quiet and shadowy in the bus. We ended up kissing, necking and petting.

Time stopped in that bus. All I could hear was her moan. And mine. At one time, she even had her right arm reaching up and backwards. I wished I had somebody took a picture from like five seats away. Would have made a good shot. Lol.

I was supposed to transfer to another bus to DC while she takes hers going to Michigan. But I was in no hurry so instead I bought a ticket all the way to Lansing, Michigan. 6 hours roundtrip back to Chicago. It was sweet. I get to pass through this place with this cool name. Kalamazoo.

@mazingerz88 Are you sure you didn’t do that on the 358? I’ve seen that, and now I’m wondering if it was you :D

jerv You made me curious about the 358! So I found this and this bit of “transit nerdery” from Seattle. Do you still take the 358? Would you miss it if you weren’t? I have this love/hate realtionship with mass transit. Just be glad you aren’t riding on this bus!!!

welcome to my world!!!

shitting & pissing trending worldwide!

Peeing in the basins on a moving train that are chinese toilets while in asia.
You’ve never had such a challenge as to have a couple of beers and have to squat and hold on to hand rails while peeing in a basin in the floor on a moving train. No wonder everyone takes their shoes off before going in the house. lol

Back in the 1970s, my buddy and I would take the bus to the beach. It was $0.40 plus a ten cent transfer for each person. We would rip a dollar bill in half and fold it up tight and drop into the fare box. The driver assumed we put a whole dollar in there. We’d each get a transfer ticket for that (40 + 10 + 40 + 10 = 100). We’d use the other half of the dollar bill to get home.

Charles That is the funniest scam story I have ever heard! Sounds like you got away with it quite a few times. Me, I am such a chicken about getting caught. I was the typical nerd who never skipped class or anything. The one time I did I got caught and had to do detention. How humiliating!! The class I skipped was French, but ohhhh how I would have loved to skip gym!!

@Earthgirl I was a teen on the 70’s too and I did cut PE for months in my senior year. lol
The 70’s were so easy, I was allowed to make up the lost PE credits by working in the school office for a few extra hours a week and I still graduated early. Oh those were the days. ;-)

Coloma Oh if I had had that choice! The only 2 things I ever enjoyed in gym class were floor hockey and golf. I got an A in golf! My score sucked, but I had “perfect form”, lol. Once I was nervous about doing a dance routine with my group so I faked sick and stayed home. I ended up having to do it all by myself! It was actally so funny. I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing, it was totally improvised. Talk about embarrassing! Out of the frying pan into the fire!

@Earthgirl Haha me too, the only things I liked were golf and archery, I refused to play football and soccer in the mud, nope, not doing it and you can’t make me! lol