The bus was about to leave. Just as the doors shut there was a sudden knock on the glass. The bus driver sighed and opened the doors. An old man stepped slowly onto the bus. Sandals with socks, long straggly beard, blue mackintosh, more plastic bags than a bag lady on an exceptionally productive day. And when I say “slowly”, imagine an ageing snail travelling against the wind.

He gently relieved himself of his plastic bags, carefully arranging them along the aisle. He rummaged through them, we sighed collectively, a bitter and despairing sigh. Even the chubby kid looked up angrily from his maths homework. The bus route had already been wrecked by the spectacular incompetence of a leading gas supplier. At every stop dizzy college girls delay us as they fumble for the change that they failed to get ready WHILE THEY WERE WAITING. Imbecilic drivers do their best to ruin our day. I don’t let these things get to me. And now this? I’d have more fun being pooped on by a flock of deranged pigeons. Guess I picked the wrong day to give up sarcasm.

Stooping, drooping, his shaking hands fumbling, he searched for something as we looked on in horror. The bus was now five minutes late and it had not even started the journey. For several minutes he rummaged, (chubby kid went back to his maths) eventually pulling out a leather-bound book. He slowly unwound the binding cord. Round and round, round and round, a bit like the wheels on the bus, apart from the fact we WERE STILL STATIONARY. Good job I’ve been working on managing my anger. My patience is legendary. He flicked slowly through the book, finally removing his bus pass.

“Sorry love,” said the bus driver, “you can’t use that pass before 9.”

What followed was the most painful exit I have ever seen. Rummaging, fumbling, dithering, mumbling. He slowly gathered his bags, chatting to the bus driver all the while. He chatted about this, about that, discussed that one and the other one. “About what?” you ask. I have no idea. The bus driver begged him to get off. We were running late, she pointed out. He commented on the weather, mumbled about the other one again, and something else, and this and that. The infernal wagging of his beard infuriated all of us (apart from the chubby kid apparently).

After much coaxing he stepped off the bus, bags and all. We emitted a collective sigh of relief, there was still a possibility of not being too late. Of course if the gas supplier and college girls had their way we would still grow old on the bus. He turned and stepped back inside. We shuddered collectively, anticipating a vicious loop of death whereby we all died trapped in the bus as this old codger shuffled on and off for eternity (watched by a deranged flock of pigeons no doubt).

“Cheerio,” he said merrily, gave the bus driver a wave and shuffled away.

Best comment ever from Rubbish on this post. Read his comment and then let me tell you more about him.

Good clean poo. Reminds me of a conversation with my Daughter when she was about five.
Daughter – “Dad, where does poo come from?”
Me (being a clever twat), “well babes, food passes down the oesophagus by a process called peristalsis. It enters into the stomach where digestive enzymes induce a probiotic reaction in the alimentary canal. This extracts the protein before waste product enters the colon. Water is absorbed whereupon it then enters the rectum finally to emerge as poo”.
Daughter – “Blimey, so where does Tigger come from”?
To be honest that comment is far too good for your blog and should be a post on my own but since your the only fucker that reads mine, so be it. Maybe you can have a best comment post and use this and then direct people to mine?
As for porn star, I’m guessing, Ron Jeremy?

Basically, my friend Rubbish is a genius. I don’t really know why so few read his blog, I absolutely love it and it is one of my favourites. I love the raw, unedited prose, his adventures in gambling, tales of past nights out and the fact that he just writes. I don’t just write enough, and his posts always inspire me to write more honestly.

Remember my Prompt Tuesday post with the Postman Pat ride? Rubbish also did one and it was the funniest damn thing I have ever read.

His comment on the Poltergeist piece made me laugh and I know he was probably telling the truth too:

Sounds like they have a portal from the afterlife probably coming in through the fridge. I’ve got a mate who can sort them out.

Rubbish, this is a little tribute to you.

The Christmas service was very English. It oozed that Englishness that makes me proud, set in the most beautiful old Norman ever crafted by man. OK, I’m biased, it is our town’s church, and I don’t even know if it is truly Norman. I could ask my wife, who is a fountain of all knowledge and knows all about these sorts of things, but she’s on the phone to her mum, so I’m just going to guess. But hey, if you’re bothered – maybe you’re a church historian or some geek with a book on Norman architecture – then feel free to examine the picture.

There weren’t many people, which was both sad and surprising. Actually, I wasn’t that unsurprised, given our nation’s slide towards a culturally vegetative state, but it was sad, and I had hoped that families would have put the turkey on, and then headed to this beautiful old church to thank God for a short hour – come on, it was just an hour folks – but never mind.

We sat at the back, partly because neither of us are Church of England – or for that matter know anything about Church of England – and it was all a bit unfamiliar, and partly because little baby R was due a change and feed, and more importantly, 10am is her poo time. Without fail, between 10 and 10:30am the little one roots, gurts and poos, thrashing her little legs about with the freedom of baby that has no understanding of propriety, extorting the most incredible expressions.

The last thing we wanted was to be on the front row, reading the wrong liturgy and struggling with a gurting, pooing, thrashing little rooter. So we found a spot on the back row.

The vicar – or would he have been a curate, clergyman or priest? – was a gentle, kind, bumbling old man. He had one of those bumbling, rambling, almost unintelligible posh accents where his r’s are almost w’s, a kind of speech impediment that is merely the result of upper-class breeding. Hilarious to listen to. I don’t think I took a single word in, I was too busy enjoying his bumbling, Boris Johnson-esk, and trying to pinpoint his accent. Canterbury perhaps.

He had a great hooked nose – I found myself imagining a caricature where his nose nearly reached his feet – and with all his robes, hood, and small round glasses he had the appearance of a benevolent eagle-god. Or an owl-god. I nearly wrote that he reminded me of an owl-god, but as I haven’t ever met (or worshipped) an owl-god that would be untruthful.

We were all equipped with a hymnal and a little red book, which contained liturgy, readings, prayers and had the most infuriating page-numbering system known to man, animal or alien. At the bottom right of each page was the “real” page number, i.e. standard sequential numbering. At the bottom center of the page was another number. This was seemingly arbitrary, but teasingly sequential. For example, the real page numbers went from 1 to 55, the other numbers spanned from between 107 and 348. Those numbers are from memory, so if you challenge them, please don’t be cross with me, just my memory, which at a tender age of 26 is deteriorating alarmingly.

Bizarrely, the owl-god was driving from the arbitrary numbering and not once did I find the right page. I did find the right page once, but only in time for the “Amen”. Before you question my incompetence, let me defend it. Frequently we were asked to turn to, say, page 111, but I didn’t have a page 111 in either numbering system, so after thumbing forwards and backwards through the book I gave up.

Maybe I had an old copy.

There were lots of nuns in the congregation, some in blue robes, some in black. This distracted me, would that have been personal preference or a simple matter of orders, or classes? I like the idea of classes, you know, when you reach a certain level of nunhood you get a blue robe. In fact, I like classes generally. Not in a discriminatory sense, though in the true sense of the word it does help you differentiate between people groups, but rather for clarity’s sake. I do like clarity. It settles my stomach and makes my heart sing. Our trains have first class seas (which generally are empty because none of us can afford first class season tickets), and standard class, which are overcrowded. I’d like them to bring back cattle-class, carriages with just a couple of benches and lots of dung. Tickets would only cost a few quid and I would be there, amongst the cattle.

The choir was motley crew, apparently much depleted by winter colds, and consisting of a few children, a couple of grannies and an aging rocker. Ah yes, the aging rocker, no choir, band or group of people – no matter what the function – is complete without one.

Little R timed her morning poo to perfection. She timed everything to perfection. Quiet during the hymns, shrill wails during poignant moments of prayer and readings. I think babies know exactly what they are doing.

Anyway, it made me proud to be English.