My Brachiation Rhythm... Ruined!

Pinballing about the bus as it lurches around the oh-so-soon-to-be-upgraded Firhouse Road, I tend to think of the handholds and bars as obstacles to be avoided if at all possible. Or at least I thought that was my thinking.

There is a multiplicity of chrome in the interior on the newer Dublin Bus fleet so that passengers can enjoy the rollercoaster ride while attempting to be seated or to disembark. I wonder if bus drivers in other countries take off at such pell-mell speed just when you are walking onto the bus, shifting your bag from one hand to the other and so have no hands to spare? Do boarding passengers in other countries inadvertently do a six-yard sprint before they catch themselves and collapse into a seat?

Or when the bell is rung to signal the driver that a passenger wants very much to get off the damned thing, do foreign buses speed up? Lurch out into traffic to catch the green light? Go twice as fast than usual around a bend?

Anyway, the 49 this evening was a single decked bus, which is a novelty. So it was with some surprise, given my antipathy to the climbing frame design of the double-decker, that I realised on rising out of my seat that I had no idea where any of the handholds where. I was swinging along in the way of my jungle ancestors quite contentedly when all of a sudden my hand landed on empty space! Naturally, I then stubbed my toe on an unfamilar piece of interior furniture and tripped as, trying to catch a bar cross-ways while at the same time avoiding strangulation from the strap of my manbag, I shot forward like a lardy projectile to ultimately skid out the open door to a relieved stop on the side of the road.

My thinking needs revision.