The freaks come out at night

the birthday gang

My public transport experiences are as varied as the twists and turns Yarra Trams takes around all the nooks and crannies (Gram-a! Gram-a! Look!) of this fair city. Through my many journeys on Metlink's fleet of buses, trains, and trams, I've witnessed arguments, fights over the telephone, intolerable body odour, obnoxious grandmothers, obnoxious school children, charming elderly people, creepy starers, coughing fits bordering on TB-proportions, men and women on ice (the drug, not next to a Zamboni), Aboriginal people yelling over land rights, drunk old men singing, drunk women singing, drunk teenagers giggling, drunk 20-somethings sleeping, drunk 30-somethings pretending they're not drunk. You get the picture. When you're inebriated, you tend to take public transport, which, I have to admit-- it's a good thing. At least it means you're not cruising down the Monash Freeway at 100 Ks/hr.

I also believe that the winter months brings out the---the how you say... The Crazies. I guess it's the weather, the difficulty to 'find a park,' as they say, in the CBD. Whatever it is, in between all the wintry sniffles and sneezes, I am noticing the clientele of Yarra Trams gets weirder.

After a lovely Sunday arvo and evening spent with wonderful people, I wanted to get the crap home. I'm a working girl like woah this month, and I needed to plan for the week-- plan my lunches, plan my outfits, you know. The Fates were not hearing my pleas, unfortunately. I was privileged (sarcasm) to ride with one approx 62 year old drunken man on this particular Sunday night on the 55 tram back to my house. As soon as he gets on, we realise there's Trouble. At first I thought he was harmless, spent a few too many hours with VBs at the Pokies, and somehow has managed to get on the appropriate tram (good on him given his state of mind, hey?). When he started telling everyone to "f**k off" and "get f****d" and nearly started a fight with a middle-aged African man, tram-goers got a little 'meehhhhh' bordering on 'aaaaaaaahhhh.'

We then proceeded to stop at Lonsdale Street for approximately twenty minutes to wait for the police to arrive. Only, we didn't quite know what we were waiting for, as the driver couldn't make an announcement like 'The cops are coming to pick up this crazy man' or anything. A teeny Singaporian girl next to me went up to the front to ask the driver what was going on (after I asked the driver to shut the doors 5 mins earlier cos it's bloody freezing these days, mate), and as she made her way back, the man called her a"f*****g sl*t." Lovely. She then informed me what was going on [SIDENOTE: Victoria Police, what gives? What are you guys all doing on a Sunday night? Texas hold'em? Watching Rove? Trivial Pursuit? Why did it take you 20 minutes to get to Lonsdale St from Victoria Market? Pretty ridiculous, fuzz].

It was right about then (after some slurring about the Sherlock Holmes book his seat-partner was reading) that McCraze decided to bust out a little Yusaf Islam. Yes indeed, when you're drunk on a tram on a Sunday night, you CLEARLY start serenading your fellow passengers with Cat Steven's Father and Son. I believe he was trying to channel 'Just relax, take it eeeeeeeeeasy.'

On a Friday night coming back from Northcote, a 20-year-old-ish couple sat across from me (pseudo Goth/pseudo IT geeks with tragic clothing. Yes, I'm making sweeping generalisations). They talked-- for 20 minutes-- about Second Life and computer games. When we went past a Transformers poster, the girl told the dude she was the blue one, and he said she must be the other one, and they started talking PDA-style indiscernably into one another's faces.. It was at this moment when I really wished I had a tape recorder, but I guess some things just have to be experienced first hand. It also makes me think 'WELP there's someone out there for everyone.' And that is a comforting feeling for all the people out there who wore Airwalks and computer watches in high school. And all of us, let's be serious.

Back to more Crazies. On my way to the city the other day on the 19, a (Cambodian?) woman had a kitten in a zip bag that she called 'her baby' and said 'don't worry we'll be home soon' about 14 times in a 5 minute span. Whilst waiting to board the 112, a chain-smoker informed me he had a vision three years ago there would be a drought. And when he wrote the government to tell them, they never responded. Even more shocking is that they never called to thank him when the drought hit to say he was right. Can you believe it?! How dare they? He then said John Howard was racist, to which I happily agreed. That shut him up. I'm pretty sure he thought I was a Liberal (big L, not little), what with my leather gloves and point shoes and corporate wear. I'm simply a well-dressed Left Winger, thanksverymuch.

When my parents were here and we took the 109 coming back from IKEA (hollaatcha Princess and the Pea bed), a bearded white man paced up and down the aisle singing 'We're on a sloooowwww boat to Chiiiiiina.' I couldn't decide whether to laugh since, yes, it was mighty slow, or ignore him because he was ripping on all the Asians in Melbourne as we barrelled down to Little Saigon, Richmond. This is the problem with Crazy. How do you know when people are genuinely being funny and when to just back away slowly?

I can, however, tell you a time when people are being genuinely funny: when they've drank too much Fruity Lexia. Half of Davis St Massive was not convinced that is all they partook in that night (ahem), but it's just speculation. All I know is, I had to take a photo right then and there to document the funniest people I've ever met in my life on public transport. A whirlwind conversation of El Salvador, Oasis, and goon makes all the Crazies seem worth while.