Crazy Shoe Hand Man

I don't normally ride the bus to work. I live within 15 minutes walking distance, and the weather is quite nice nowadays. But today I was feeling lazy and slightly jet lagged from my weekend jaunt to Philly, so I decided to be a lazy bastard. So I head on down to the stop and hop on the U3 (ironically, the first bus route I ever took after moving to London) and moved towards the exit door. I only had a a few stops to go and didn't want to sit down with my backpack full of soccer, ahem, football, gear.

As soon as the bus starts moving, some old man with wild hair starts shooting me looks from the front of the bus. He just kept turning around, glancing at me kind of nervously, and then would turn back around. I didn't pay him much attention until after the 4th or 5th time he got out of seat and started yelling at me. I had my head phones on and he had a thick English accent with a hint of cuckoo, so I couldn't understand him. So I ignored him.

We went through this exercise a few more times: he'd get up and shout at me, I'd pretend the whole bus wasn't staring at me, and then he'd sit down and put his fingers in his ears while rocking back and forth. Finally, he got up and walked right up to me and I could hear him loud and clear: "Sit down pleeease!!!!!".

What the hell do you say to that? He apparently was not comfortable with people standing in his presence, so rather than cause a further scene and risk getting my ear bit off, I acquiesced and took the empty seat by the door. But only because he said please. Luckily this seemed to relieve him, though he kept shooting my glances for the remainder of the 4 minute ride.

And now you know the story of the time Mike decided to never ride the bus to work again.