Part II

Why the 'Bus of Doom', you may wonder ?

Read on and you will discover the devine retribution that was about to befall me for my tetchiness ...

The Bus of Doom pulled in to the stop, then, to allow people to get off and the group of us to get on.

As a car driver, i know that bus drivers can be a bit bolchy at the best of times what with people using 'their' lanes to park in, getting cut up and being held to account for lateness.

I can very well imagine that this day might have been one of 'those days' for the driver and could feasibly have been exacerbated by the nonchalently leisurely pace at which we all boarded.

As soon as the doors were closed *shhhht* the driver hit the accelerator and zoomed off at a g-force defying speed *vavavooooooom*

The Bus of Doom was off on it's lurching voyage of terror and bodily destruction.

The acceleration was so abrubt and brutal, that ...

... i lost my footing on the rain sodden floor ...

... and went skidding down to the other end (imagine someone having a nasty spill whilst skiing)

... and in the process, manged to get a nasty 'whump' on an ear which hurt like bejesus ...

... and left me sitting on my arse, blinking and stunned like a thing that's just been brained

So stunned was i, that all of my trainees/collegues thought that i had concussion.

The shock and the shame of it all :-/

To compound things, a very very very old bloke (of an age where his body must be made entirely from just bones and dust .. that kind of 'old') tried to lift me off the floor but couldn't quite manage it on his own.

So another equally old and as equally wrinkly guy tried to take my other arm - by which time i'd regained a bit of composure and had visions of making the headlines of the evening news :

"Drunken English tourist assaults and kills two frail o.a.p.s on the N° 72 bus in central Paris"