Back in the day ( well about five years ago ) when I was still riding in Glasgow, as I was returning from an out of town drop I had a run-of-the-mill near death experience involving a bus. I let it go as I was having a good day and didn't want to spoil it by hurling futile abuse at the driver and getting myself angry, but I ended up getting back into the city centre before the bus and was quite surprised to see it come driving past Blytheswood square*, so I took the opportunity to flip the driver the bird.
He wasn't happy.
Blytheswood SquareI quickly forgot about this incident but the next day the same bus came past at the same time, there was quite a few other couriers hanging around and the driver was clearly still smarting from the previous days finger. He rolled down his window and shouted something along the lines of "Pushbike scum!" it was aimed at me but everyone took it to heart, some of the Glasgow couriers are pretty scary guys and the Driver had to make a hasty exit before his bus was surrounded by angry messengers. At this point I stopped getting involved, the last thing I wanted was a tough guy Bus Driver out to get me, especially since he drove a route that went through the main area I worked...of course there was no stopping the rest of them.
Westcoast MessengersIt turns out the bus company was running a University shuttle service into the centre of Glasgow so this guy was going to pass us at 2:30 every day and he got and gave abuse daily. Then one day there were three of us at Blytheswood and the two other couriers both gave him the finger as I sat about doing nothing...it was the final straw. Abandoning his bus and students in the traffic he came running out and came directly for me, redfaced and hurling spit-flying insults about how he was going to run me off his road. This guy was a typical Glasgow hardman with Navy tattoos and a big bushy moustache and I was ready for a fight I wasn't going to win, but just then Stuart (one of the guys that had just flipped him the bird) stepped up and started calling him Toby and telling him to calm it. The Driver just stared at us with a really confused expression then turned on his heels and stormed back to his bus load of students, who by now all had their faces pressed up against the windows. "How d'you know his name was Toby?" I asked Stuart. "Well one of his tattoos says Toby and I had to call him something, it seemed to work cos he's fucked off now!"...Street brawl narrowly averted, I still had Toby out to get me. He was clearly a short tempered powderkeg of violence and on the road his bus would always win so I needed to pick my next move carefully.
If I did nothing then Toby would've won so I had to come up with something but if I was going to be risking my teeth, or life then it had to be something funny.
MoustachesI thought Toby looked like the sort of guy who had a moustache as a sign of masculinity, so it would probably hurt him if we mocked it. The next day after a quick trip to the joke shop to bulk buy about 15 false 'taches I made it to the square and handed them out just in time for Toby to drive past and see us all standing about waving at him with big bushy moustaches on. He just stopped his bus and glared at me. I thought he might actually explode, like a cartoon.
The next couple of weeks were some of the funnest I've had as a courier, we worked out different things to do each day, including standing in a line with our backs to the road then turning around one by one as Toby drove past or sitting along the wall reading newspapers then all popping our heads over the top to wink at him, riders who normally didn't hang around Blytheswood would come up to get involved, it was a race everyday to get to the square for the lunch time show. All the 'taches were left in a nearby coffee shop so whoever was around could grab one. I'm pretty sure someone even turned up with their own false moustache. And each day Toby's face would just get redder and angrier. It eventually got to the stage where we would've had to stage a full scale Busby Berkeley style song and dance routine to stop it getting boring but the next day as Toby's bus came into view he was tooting his horn in a friendly way. I looked in the cab and there was Toby with a two foot wide homemade cardboard moustache on. I was gobsmacked. After that whenever I saw Toby's bus I'd give him a wave and he'd beep his horn... we'd become BFFs. Humour had won the day and Toby's bus had gone from the most dangerous vehicle on the road to the friend of the couriers.
A few months later the driver of the bus changed and Toby was never seen again, maybe he's travelling the world spreading his new found message of love. More likely the cardboard 'tache was the start of a nervous breakdown and he's now in an asylum drawing huge moustaches in crayon and trying to cut them out with his plastic scissors.
On the H.O.P. Jukebox: Basketball Jones
*the courier hangout spot
