Making new friends
The N29 has always been a nightmare, but a couple of years ago the buses were "upgraded" from capacious double-deckers filled with seats to the new spontaneously combusting bendy buses, with their "increased capacity" consisting of three seats in total and a lot of standing room with not enough things to hang on to. I dislike bendy buses at the best of times, but using them at 4am on one of the nightclub - student ghetto routes just crosses the line. Owing to the impossibility of wedging yourself into a corner seat and minding your own business on a bendy bus, within the first year I'd had my phone stolen twice and my wallet stolen once, I'd been frequently caught in the fallout of uncontrolled vomiting and several people had fallen onto/into/over me, with various results. And it's really hard to read your book.

Despite the above rant, I actually had a seat on the night this story takes place.

It was a Friday, I had staggered out of the Electric Ballroom in Camden at around half past three and, stopping only for water and Tic-Tacs, made my way to the bus stop. The fates were clearly smiling on me and I managed to collapse into a seat and dive into my book in an attempt to block out the horrors around me. All was going well, until the person sat next to me departed and was replaced by someone I could tell was going to be trouble. Clearly chav-curious at the very least, and of the particularly unleasant scrawny, weaselly breed, he entered the bus with two much bigger friends who took up flanking (and CCTV-blocking) positions before sitting down heavily next to me, forcing me up against the window. As he twitched against me like a nutter, I buried my face in my book and desperately hoped I'd be able to avoid a stabbing. Then I felt something... else.

Being a filthy nu-metallist (at least occasionally), I was wearing enormously baggy trousers liberally covered in random zips and buckles. My new neighbour, under cover of his jiggling, had opened a zip at random in hope of interesting things to steal, sneakily reached inside and wound up with a handful of my knee. In full view of his colleagues, both of whom were now failing to conceal smirks of amusement. I looked at him, he looked at me with dawning horror. I grinned and raised one eyebrow, one of his buddies started sniggering and the other cracked up. I looked down, and only then did he remove his hand.

He stormed off the bus at the next stop, his associates following and loudly questioning his sexuality. I had a Tic-Tac, zipped myself back up and went home to bed.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Fri 30 May 2008, 18:04, Reply)