Public Transport and Weirdo Alert

It’s an eye-opening experience when you’re forced to step outside your comfort zone and take public transport.

I’ve caught plenty of taxis in the past (usually in the evening when alcohol was involved) and town buses with the kids when they were little as a treat. Yes, it was a treat to them – especially when they caught sight of themselves on the internal tv screen.

But at the moment I am in between cars and have no choice but to exit my usual hurried routine of garage to destination missions and have found myself loitering on public benches as a result.

I’ve experienced the good and the bad while carless. The reason I am carless is because a couple of years ago I got it into my head that a seven-seater would be a good idea. Trouble is, most of them look like vans or people movers and the only one I could find which looked semi-decent was given the thumbs down by the mechanical ‘bible’ which I was advised to consult. I ignored it and purchased said seven-seater and, to cut a long story short, learnt an expensive lesson. So now, with the car in mind which gets the thumbs up from my car ‘bible’, it is a matter of waiting for it to pop up on my watchlist and pounce.

Hence how the children and I found ourselves in Auckland on Monday post car sale, stranded but with a pocketful of cash. I decided to turn it into an adventure and took us up the Sky Tower, amongst other things, before catching the Naked Bus back home. It could have been a disaster, on foot in a big city with our backpacks and finding our way home but, after many hours of careful planning, it went seamlessly. The bus ride was super-fast, broken up by the young French tourist in front turning round to chat about my son’s unusual name after she heard it spoken. It turns out she was newly pregnant after a New Zealand encounter, but had already named her baby the same name as my youngest. She chatted for about an hour before rummaging for a pen for my contact details. Next minute a pen poked through the gap from the seat behind us, courtesy of another young tourist who must have been listening in.

As the kids and I emerged from our taxi at the other end, they remarked how much fun they had had. That is all the thanks a parent needs and the cost and effort were worth it.

The next day I had a couple of meetings in town so walked up the road to catch the public bus. I think the public bus system here is great. It’s just the weirdos you need to watch out for. But I will come back to that later. The good things about being a passenger are the ability to chill-out, multi-task, and observe things you would normally miss while driving. During the trip in, I spotted my son running round the school field and made a mental note to give him a bit of grief about his pace at dinner that night (I did and it turned out it was his fourth lap), and a friend, who I had no idea was into fitness, training.

On the journey home, however, I encountered the weirdo. This was not my first encounter with a weirdo of late. Recently, while my car was in for repairs, I decided to hang out at the nearby Rose Gardens while I waited. It was a lovely sunny day so I parked up by the river with a book. However, half an hour in, the tranquillity was shattered by a freak who spent a good 30 minutes circling and eye-balling me, then finally pulling out his phone and trying to take pictures. This incident lead me straight to the police station, after which I opted to hang out on a central park bench where it felt safer.

With this week’s weirdo experience, out of all the empty seats, he chose the one opposite mine up the end and turned with his back to the window and just stared. It was very unsettling so I distracted myself by replying to some texts and he finally seemed to lose interest about halfway into the ride. But that was when I noticed he was now leaning forward scrutinising the tv screen. I considered pulling the finger but continued to scowl at my phone instead before gladly jumping off at my stop.