This morning, I walked to the back of the bus, pondering why the last three rows were almost empty.

At that time in the morning, I generally have to sit up the front, if I am even fortunate enough to find a spare seat. The solution to The Mystery of the Spare Seats assaulted my face as I slammed into a malodourous cloud of stench emitting from the one passenger sitting in the back seat. At that moment, I would have been willing to spend the rest of my life with only four senses if only the smell would stop. I now know what the Bog of Eternal Stench smelled like in the movie Labyrinth. Halfway through the action of sitting down, I stood up and went to the middle of the bus to stand. I turned back to observe Stinky Pete and expected from the smell to see a homeless person wearing clothes that had been polished with excrement. I did not expect to see a man in a well-tailored business suit.
Throughout the trip, I watched as people would walk to the back of the bus, I anticipated the involuntary shake that quaked through their bodies as they hit the stench. Some turned back; Some stayed; No-one sat next to the man in the suit. By the time we reached Perth, the smell had wafted midway down the bus.
I like to think that the passengers that sat next to the man fretted for the rest of the day that the smell had attached itself to them.

In summary – there was a smelly person on the bus today. Not very interesting is it? Of course, I’ve got another bus story from years back and this morning’s incident works nicely as a segway into this next bus tale. I’ve probably already told it to most people reading this, but will blog it, as I certainly would have blogged it back then, had I had a blog:

Picture this: I’m sitting on the driver’s side of the bus, second row from the back. I look out the window at a fine Summer day . I have my left ankle resting on my right knee and am tapping a tune on my boot with my fingers. The man across the aisle turns to face me:

”What the HELL do you think you’re doing!”

I stop mid-tap.
The guy has a shaved head, RayBan sunglasses, beard, leather jacket, jeans, and heavy biker boots. Oh Shit! I think; wondering what I have done to annoy the bikie. On second inspection, I realise he is not facing me, but rather someone sitting behind me in the back row. I turn my head to see, but only register that it is a guy, before looking back to the bikie.
He reaches around his back and pulls out a badge:

”I’m a cop. You’re under arrest!”

So, he’s a cop – not a bikie. I figure the guy behind me must be writing graffiti or something. I begin to turn around to look, but the cop stands up, and my attention is drawn to him:

”Driver! Stop the bus! I’ve just caught this man masturbating!”

My head whips forward immediately – eyes staring directly ahead.
The bus stops and the cop picks the guy out of his seat and propels him through the back door. The cop storms back, picks up the guy’s shopping, and thrusts it into the guys arms outside.
The cop asks the driver if he can use his radio to call it in, and does so.
He then comes up the back of the bus and asks me and a girl who’d been sitting in front of him if we had seen anything. We are both (thankfully) able to say no.
The whole time the cop is on the bus the perpetrator stands on the curb, shifting his feet under the scrutiny of the other passengers.
The bus pulls away from the curb as the cop launches into berating the pervert.

Now the important thing for you to take away from reading this blog is that both the smelly passenger from today and the pervert from years ago sat in the far-right seat of the back row of the bus.
Coincidence? I think not.