Ask Lemmy

Idk if this counts as crazy but one day a guy went up to me and said "hey I'm about to smoke meth. Its probably going to smell so you can change seats if you want to." And then I did and that was basically it.

Nothing that crazy I guess, but two events I remember:

• A small fire broke out next to the tracks and the train driver actually stopped the train and got out to extinguish it

• A train busker played so loudly and terribly that a group of random passengers got together to shove him out of the train at the next station.

On the NYC subway a guy was taking up two seats, he pulls out a notebook and starts (screaming) reading from it. It was all about some conspiracy that got him kicked out of Columbia University. People started moving away from him. At the next stop a guy gets on the train and says to "hey psycho you really need two seats" the crazy guy slides over freeing up one of the seats and then goes back to yelling.

A very intoxicated man explained at length to my friend and me that we should stay in school instead of dropping out to join the military like he did. He wasn't wrong.

I was sat opposite a woman who had a grocery bag filled to the brim with crisps packets, or so it seemed. She started out just munching on crisps, mouth fully open, shoving her hands in there. She emptied two packs in between two stops (metro). Efficient.

When she had enough she started rumaging frantically through her bag for a solid 20 seconds, and then triumphantly dug out a can of whipped cream (squirty cream format for my UK friends), opened it, and just emptied the whole thing in her mouth in one go!

It was in France, of all fucking places.

I watched a lady bring a small dead bird in a ziploc onto the Metro in Montreal and then proceed to pluck its feathers onto the floor.

and we aren't talking about your game hen or a quail here or something. I'm lalking about a fucking sparrow or something like that.

I watched a guy chug a bottle of orange Listerine, ramble incoherently for ten minutes, then proceed to have uncontrollable diarrhea all over the seat before getting off the train.

In Halifax, two teenage girls talking on the bus. One girl was describing how her boyfriend fucks her. Very graphic.

Some tweaker was huffing compressed air cans, but the kind that have the bittering agent to discourage people from huffing. The stuff got into the air and was very unpleasant for everyone. I had to get off at the next stop and wait for another train, I couldn't breathe.

In addition to some junkie/alkie shenanigans I saw an immigrant started praying on his Muslim mat in front of the train doors. Dude started raving when someone stepped on his mat trying to get out. I remember everyone just looking around confused over the idiocy of it all

Not my story, but it’s so good I have to share it: my classmate told me about how she was on a bus and some guy was arguing with the bus driver about fare or something, and the bus driver just gets up, takes off his bus driver vest thing, and fucking walks off the job! She said everyone on the bus was like WTF. Then when she left the bus and went to another bus stop to try to get home the driver was also just waiting at that stop, because obviously he drove the bus there and had no other way to get anywhere 😂

Santacon and elf con crossed tracks at a train stop. For some reason there was also a train full of clowns and a few mime artists all on the same train.

I’ve had to administer noloxone twice on the subway (once was on the platform)

some guy sat across from me and started screaming at me how beautiful my boots were and what a removed i was. then went into this long story about how he'd be rich like me if his bitch mom hadn't stolen his dad's money. then he went on about his dreadlocks being beautiful and perfect and he'll cut anyone who calls it cultural appropriation.

nobody had said a word to this guy, he just went off for one stop then got off to change cars probably to go tell the same weird nutbag rant to the next subway car.

i had a dude walk up to me and say "never just take unsolicited advice"

possibly the best advice i ever got. total mindfuck though

A dude approached me letting me know he was the Blue Elf, he was dressed in a childish vibrant flat colors, but nothing too out of the ordinary. He told me he was an artist traveling for an exchange and that he was known for giving away blue puzzle pieces, of which he gave me one. Said goodbye a couple of stops later. He left me utterly confounded. Once home, I looked it up on the Internet and confirmed all his story…

Saw a guy on the SF Muni simultaneously solving two Rubik’s cubes, one in each hand. By the time he got off at the next station he was done with both of them.

A drunk squaddie explaining social security and taxes to his fellow squaddies in a broad Glaswegian accent.

Although I suppose the craziest thing was getting out of King's Cross while it was on fire, on a train that wasn't supposed to stop.

A drunk man in an Elvis costume, singing to old ladies and grabbing their hands. They loved it.

hoo boy have I got a story for you!

It's my first day heading to work after moving to a new apartment. I get on the bus around 7 AM. My guide dog (Guide Dog 1 from a previous post) is under my seat with her head poking out a bit into the aisle.

A few stops down route and this drunk lady gets on and sits right next to me. I'm a little annoyed but it's public transit and a lack of personal space is par for the course.

"Oh, a doggy," she slurs in Spanish, attempting to pet my dog's head. Unfortunately she misses and starts petting my leg instead. I jump up and relocate to another seat, but not before telling the woman "Please don't touch my dog, and don't touch me either." The rest of the ride she's groping the air in the general direction of my dog.

Some other anecdotes in no particular order:

• Someone in the back of the bus screaming "It's my birthday WOOOOOOOO!"
• A lady ranting at the driver to stop for a good 20 minutes because she has to pee
• A smelly bum falling asleep on my shoulder

I have to mention a time where I was probably the strange one: after the lockdowns ended but while masking was still common, I would wear a full respirator with face shield, basically a gas mask, while on the bus. My rationale is that a normal paper or cloth mask stops the wearers germs from getting out but doesn't do so well at stopping them from getting in. I can't see who is or isn't wearing a mask, so I'm going to wear something that WILL protect me against the non maskers.

EDIT:

Oh and the time my bus got cut off by another bus and the driver got out and started yelling at the other driver. I was already within walking distance of my destination, so I just noped off the bus before it could escalate.

EDIT 2:

same bus as the drunk dog petter, this guy would get on at the stop after mine. I called him Mr. Bucket because he always carried this large white plastic bucket that smelled absolutely foul.

EDIT 3:

I get on a bus (different city) while wearing a lanyard with a name badge on it. I forget to slip the lanyard under my shirt, and this lady leans in and grabs the lanyard to examine the card.

Her: "You're from [name of place on the lanyard]?"

Me, unable to lie at this point: "...yes".

I used to ride the CTA blue line into downtown Chicago for work. One of the other commuters who I saw regularly was as guy with a large patchwork hat that he clearly made himself. He also called a folding sign that looked like it was made of thin pieces of plywood. He'd be sitting and reading the newspaper when I got on, but when the train was getting close to down town he'd calmly fold up his paper and start getting himself worked up. By the time we got to Clark and Lake, the big transfer station, he'd be incredibly animated and ranting about God and the devil. He'd sprint off through the crowd the moment the doors opened

Guy had a baseball bat with nails on the crowded greenline in Boston. Pretty sure it was used for holding multiple plastic bags on his shoulder, but it was still kinda freaky

I stared at my wife's cleavage while riding the train once. Otherwise it's all been pretty chill.

Public transport and living in a apartment made me really dislike people. Its enough with one weirdo to destroy a good nights sleep or a public transport journey for everyone.

Some humans are pretty much animals and just do what they want without any thoughts about others.

dude huffin paint out of a paper bag on a full morning commute

dude was trippin balls and everyone gave him space so it was something to behold, it was one of those bus rides that had a 15-20 minute space on the freeway so there wasn't any making him leave. Everyone kept an eye on him as he passed up and down the isle.

It was something so far out, I recorded it on my phone

Back when I was in college I road the bus every day. Nothing even remotely as crazy as most of the comments here describing happened that I witnessed on those hundreds of bus rides There was the dude wearing a parka when the heat index was over 100, or the guy weeping holding a bouquet while heading into a residential area and those are honestly not that interesting because shit happens but I do have one story:

One fairly quiet bus ride I was seated in some of the sideways seats near the front and a lady seated across from me was reading a newspaper. My eyes are drifting as I'm listening to a podcast and suddenly I realize on the front of the paper this lady is reading is a photo of my dad. I asked her "excuse me, could I look at that paper quickly? That's a photo of my dad there and I want to see what he's been up to to get in the paper but hasn't told me" and it turns out he helped run a Wikipedia edit-a-thon event at a local library to help encourage new contributors.

Waiting for a matatu and one dude starts beating the shit out of another. Two separate times.

Cool dude gets on near Bakersfield, sits next to me, drinks a 12 pack and tells me how he murdered people in prison.

Various people smoking crack, meth, and fety on trains and buses

Dude gets asked to turn his music down, goes on escalating and frankly impressive rant for 10 minutes about how he’s going to cut the guys head clean off with his machete

Various guys jacking off

Various rants against every race

Spent 90% of my life taking public transit and I love it. Big public transit fan and I wish people would intermingle more in general.

But, if you talk loudly or listen to music on the tinny speakers on your phone, you are the scum of the earth in my eyes. I’d rather have a dude strung out on heroin on the train than you, absolutely no hint of sarcasm.

Got a few that come to mind:

Three young guys, I would guess in their early twenties, were being obnoxious in a silence compartment. Other people noticed but nobody went beyond casting disapproving looks. One of the boys defiantly started asking the other passengers one by one if they found the boys annoying. The first few people cowardly denied annoyance until one of them simply and firmly responded 'yes'. The boys had not expected this and just packed up and left. It was hilarious to see their faces, they had not expected that haha

In Spain, a ticket inspector addressed me in Spanish, which I don't speak. I tried communicating in English. Unfortunately the ticket inspector thought that I would magically start understanding Spanish if he increased his speaking volume. After a few rounds of this he was practically shouting at me. Luckily at that point another passenger joined in to translate and we managed to sort things out.

On the train from London to Edinburgh, an obligatory drunk randomly shouting Scotsman

One morning when I got on the Stockholm metro there was a guy, bombed out of his mind, he had tossed his jacket in the middle of the floor, and was messing about with bottle caps with water and syringes.

No one made a sound (this is normal in the Stockholm rush hour), and I reached out through the SL app chat feature to inform the security center about the situation

I told them that a poor guy on the train clearly needed help, didn't speculate, but informed them about what I could see, told them what train it concerned and where on the train the guy was and gave a description of him.

Two stops later two security guards boarded the train and quickly lead him out, no screaming or disruption at all.

I don't know what happened to the guy after that, but I was careful to stay neutral yet concerned for the guy's health, and I hope he finally got the help he needed if not wanted at the time and is doing much better now.

The bus being on time.

On a trip to San Francisco, the quintessential "gay mecca" of the USA I was on a bus making my way over towards Haight area (then planning to go visit Castro street aka the actual gayest part of San Francisco) there were a group of men on the bus going on a bigoted rant specifically about homosexual men ruining the country and going to hell and all that fun stuff on the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Like, I'd expect to hear that kind of stuff in the middle of Oklahoma's rural hellscape (sans the bus part). But in San Francisco of all places?

Someone called the bus driver "woman" for being sensitive during an argument so he called the police on them.

I have been sitting in a tram that emergency breake'd. It was all seriously fast: Ring of the warning bell (like an overgrown alarm clock) towards the driver of the car, and next thing was that I was leaning over an old lady sitting in the opposite side. They accellerated like a snail on dope, but breaking was applying ACME Insta Stop.