A Pinball Fish on a Bus

Howdy there my lovely bus blog reader. I’d like to ask if you remember about the existence of this little ‘trauma-retelling’ blog I’ve been sharing on here, but such a thing is not easy to forget…well at least not for the writer. The writer being me of course.

I know you're probably wondering about the title of this entry huh? Well, keep reading and it'll all make sense very soon.

To be honest with you, this blog has been on my mind for a while now. I’ve been meaning to share more traumatic bus adventures with you – but thankfully my bus experiences these past few months have been somewhat calm with no chaos in sight – until they weren’t that is. Between the ‘flailing around like a fish out of water whilst trying to get out of my seat’ moment and the ‘playing pinball in the bus with my own body and flesh as the ball’ moment (aaaand it makes sense now), I’m not sure which one is more worth sharing than the other. So here I am, sharing both these experiences with you. Please do enjoy as I re-live two of the worst and most embarrassing bus happenings of my entire existence.

Let’s start with the flailing fish debacle as I like to call it. For some background context, when I started at my new school this year, I found that I could take a green bus straight from my apartment…which is great! What’s slightly less great is that this bus seems to fill up with rowdy teenage boys upon going and coming from work. They’ve truly become inescapable and I’ve deducted that there must be a boys’ high school nearby where I work. What’s so bad about this is that teenagers are the worst kind of people to embarrass yourself in front of. Why? Because teenagers are the most self-aware beings when it comes to embarrassment. It’s the stage of our lives when avoiding making a fool of ourselves is at an all-time high and we’d do anything to avoid it. As you get older, embarrassing yourself usually tends to become less and less of a worry and I’m pretty sure it’s why old people have no shame and why my mother used to ‘do the dance of joy’ when picking me up from my school’s ‘aftercare.’ Apart from wanting to drop dead in those moments, I can appreciate her excitement for being able to see me after a long day of work, but I also question how she didn’t ever feel embarrassed to do such a thing in front of all kinds of people.

Other examples of people who bewilder me are those who revisit the same store twice or more on the same day, those who are bold enough to exchange things, those who will send back the wrong order of food and honestly so many more moments like these. These said moments aren’t even supposed to be embarrassing and they’re not even all that bad, but I’m sharing them with you to showcase the level in which such small things like this, can embarrass ME.

I once walked to a total of four different pharmacies to avoid going to the one nearby my house in fear that they didn’t have my medication. So why did I go to four others? Well, I was supposed to go the pharmacy just outside the hospital I visited but I didn’t know if it was on the inside of the hospital or on the outside. I ended up completely exiting the hospital, thinking it was surely inside and now I was too ashamed to re-enter the hospital to double check. Instead, I decided I’d go to the small pharmacy about five blocks away even though there’s about nine pharmacies on every corner. Yes, you heard me right, but I wanted to go to one I was somewhat familiar with but not too familiar with, thus why I avoided the one right by my apartment - which would have made a lot more sense to go to. Unfortunately the small pharmacy didn’t have the medication I was prescribed at the hospital, so I tried about two others before realizing the one by the hospital was in fact…outside of the hospital upon double-checking the map. I could have avoided this whole thing if I simply looked around once I stepped foot out the hospital in the first place, but my brewing embarrassment at the thought of having to re-enter it stopped me from even doing so. Ah yes, the mind and thought process of an over-thinker.

So I turned around and decided to make my way BACK to the hospital about five blocks away (whilst sick might I add) and finally I got my medication.

Did a whole lot of nothin’ for nothing huh?

So yes, it would appear that the older I get, my embarrassment ripens along with me. Now that you know the severity of my embarrassment meter, let’s get back to the bus saga.

Embarrassing moment number 1 – a flailing fish tale

Upon entering the bus one day on the way to work, I was able to snag a seat. Now I’ve already gone into details about seats and the calculations for where to sit and where not to sit on the bus, but I didn’t think it would be too much of a problem to ignore said calculations a bit since the green buses aren’t always as big or the number of passengers in the morning isn’t too bad, and if there are a lot of people, a lot of them usually all get off before or at my stop, ensuring a nice streamline of students to follow and get off with, ensuring things run smoothly.

So I did end up sitting in the back area (but not the very back back – If you know, you know) and one thing I’m not a fan of is sitting on the wheel (but I did this time), because I’m pretty tall and sitting on the massive hump where the wheel is isn’t very comfortable. The biggest problem with it is that it makes it awkward for you to get out of your seat if someone is sitting next to you. You can’t exactly hoist yourself up on the hump because it’s too high and there’s no space on the floor for you to put your legs and hoist yourself up. So it makes sense that the other person just gets up and moves into the aisle so that you can get up and move passed them…right? RIGHT??? WRONG!

People here in Korea love to flatter you by thinking them shimmying their legs to the side creates enough room for you to squeeze passed and get out from where you’re sitting. Now, let me not be a hypocrite – I’ve done this too upon observing others do it. The difference is I do it for people half my size. I am by no means overweight and I’m not trying to paint that sort of picture – but I’m tall and my bone structure is significantly bigger and broader than a lot of Korean women and that is absolutely one hundred percent okay…until they think I can get passed them to escape into the aisle. Like “thank you, I’m so flattered…but no.” I also know they’re not doing it to flatter me at all but rather so that they don’t have to get up at all. Not being able to understand that you’re going to be met with a face full of butt and back if you don’t get up makes me question why you’d want that instead of standing up for five seconds to let someone pass.

Okay moving on. So, the woman who sat next to me wasn’t tiny but she definitely wasn’t big and she was probably a middle-age woman. Once it was time to get off, I thought for sure she would get up for me considering even if she slightly moves her legs to the side, I cannot use that space to get up because I’m slap-bang on the wheel. On top of that, the gaps between the seats are really small on some of these buses… so the distance is quite narrow at times. So it was to my horror, that she moved her legs to the side. Surprised are we? Now I have to act fast because we’re approaching my stop, so I tried my best to hoist myself up whilst holding my bag and I just immediately fell back down in my seat. My legs are too high up from the ground (again because they’re on the wheel hump) which makes me too high up to hold onto the handle of the chair in front of me and use it as leverage to pull myself up. When I get to a certain point, I instantly fall back down. So now imagine me continuously doing this while this lady waits… as if she isn’t realising my problem. Que the flailing fish maneuver or should I call it ‘the failing fish’ *ba-dumb-tsss* because I was going nowhere very slowly. Eventually by some miracle, I did make it out of my seat. Flustered, bothered and ever so embarrassed at the people now looking at the weird fish-like foreigner on the bus, I walked to the door and stood beside some young boys. The bus stopped in that moment at a light and I thought to quickly readjust myself and my bag, so I let go of the railing.

Letting go of the railings inside the bus will forever be my downfall and lesson I have yet to learn from, because that traffic light lasted all but three seconds before I was body slamming myself into the backpack of the boy standing next to me. I was so grateful I was about to get off the bus in the next few seconds because I couldn’t stand to be there any longer. After I apologised, I grabbed back onto the railing, pleaded to God that I didn’t need more time on earth in that moment, hoping He would end my misery, and went on my very un-merry way as soon as I could step foot off that bus.

Embarrassing moment number 2 – The human pinball

This one is by far the worst one, because I know it’s going to scar my mother if she reads it. Whilst I’m thankful I didn’t get hurt in any way…it is quite a mystery how I managed to avoid injury.

Sorry Mom for what you’re about to read…and sorry for not telling you about it either. Lol.

I was on my way home one day from the other school that I work at. So for this one, I have a few bus options and my trusted bus no. 25 was taking its oh so sweet time and so I decided to opt for bus no. 22 that day – which I always regret because the route takes a lot longer and bus no. 25 usually gets there before 22 anyways. This bus also happens to fill up with young students going to their afterschool academies in my area, so choosing this bus is like choosing to play with fire and boy…did I play with fire that day.

Anyway, when I decided to just take bus no.22, I got on and sat at the very front in the single seat right by the door to enter the bus. Usually I like this seat, even though I do realise that if the bus ever happens to have a serious crash, I’d fly directly into or through the front window and die most likely. That…or snap my neck. Oh well, never mind that Mom, forget that seat exists haha..ha…….ha.

At one point, as expected – all the students got on and eventually, got off. But there was a young student that decided to stand right in front of where I was sitting. Technically she was facing my profile view and I was facing the front (to try and paint the picture for you). Eventually I had to get off, so I pressed the button to notify the driver and decided to get up and make my way to the door while he was still driving. This is completely normal and usually safe depending on how stable you are. I held onto my railing and got out of my seat, expecting the girl to sit down in my place so that I could move passed her. Right? RIGHT???? Why do people continue time and time again to surprise me in the worst possible way? Instead, she stayed standing there, in my way. 

So now I had to move around her. You know what moving around her entailed? Letting go of the damn railing. Usually I’m fine with not holding on when the bus is driving on a flat surface, but I completely forgot about the subway line construction that was currently ongoing so there’s a small part of the road where it dips and jolts the bus when it drives over it. So forgetting about this crucial bit of information, I let go of the railing quickly to get around the student and as soon as I moved to step around, the bus jolted…. And I flew backwards….which was technically forward toward the front of the bus. What happened was; as I turned and walked to get around her and the bus drove over the small dip, it bonked me off balance and I flew where the force had pulled me like a magnet. I even remember things slowing down in my head like something out of The Matrix (in the most uncool way though), as I tried to grab for something in front of me to prevent me from falling flat on my back. All this, while the student just watched me without any remorse in her eyes. A true Scar letting go of Mufasa moment.

Luckily I didn’t end up falling on my back though and the only reason for that was because I slammed into the front of the bus so hard that I’m pretty sure the bus driver thought I was going to die. He shouted out in surprise and all I could think to say was “I’m sorry.” (In Korean of course) even though I was the one getting hurt, or at least appearing like it.

Typical Tayla always worried about inconveniencing others even though I almost sustained serious injuries. Tell me you’re a people-pleaser without telling me you’re a people-pleaser.

After I slammed into the front of the bus with my backside, I was thrown forward then and instantly just continued with my attempt to try and get to the exit door. Truly, I felt like the poor ball in that one random pinball game we all had on our computers at some point. After that, I pretended as if it didn’t just happen and a bus full of people hadn’t just watched it happen. I eventually got off and vowed I wasn’t going to take that bus again anytime soon, avoiding said bus driver and students so that they eventually and hopefully forget that I’m the girl that got thrown around and bullied by the bus itself. That wasn’t even the worst part of it. The worst part was realising I lost my spring onion keyring to the bus, as it must’ve got plucked off my bag as I hit into it. Never mind getting hurt or possibly becoming paralysed, I was sad to lose my cute veggie keyring. :(

Okay, but in all seriousness, I really am thankful I was protected in that moment, because it was quite scary apart from being embarrassing and it really did look like I got seriously hurt – but I promise you I didn’t Mom. I was safe, albeit a little emotionally bruised if not physically.

Since then, I haven’t had anything that traumatizing happen again – but knowing that they’re not the last moments of embarrassment I’ll face sure keep me awake some nights. I guess we’ll have to wait until then, right?

Until the next stop,

Bus Blog Driver Tay