On the buses

On the bus to town - writing at home was impossible, I wanted people around me while I worked, and I was going into a pet shop anyway to get BioActivator (dig a three-foot-deep hole, drop the dog poo into it and cover with earth; once a week slosh in a bucket of water with a capful of BioActivator and it rots down fast and you don't have to dig another hole for ages).
As the bus drove up a friend came running, with her son. We all got on, and she and I proceeded to chat away, with me sat on the front seat beside a young girl, and my pal and her son on the seat behind me.
I didn't notice as the girl beside me got out - until a stocky woman with a shopping trolley said: "Excuse me, can I get in there?"
I apologised and leaped up - and the woman sat her bottom down on the outside seat where I'd been, and invited another woman to sit on the inside.
"I won't take that woman's seat," the other woman said.
Mrs Trolley said indignantly: "I wouldn't take anyone's seat! I wouldn't be so ignorant!" (Completely ignoring me standing beside her and trying to keep the grin off my face.)
When the woman she'd invited wouldn't sit down, she invited a grey-haired man, who rushed in and sat down quick.
A chorus of indignant looks roasted Mrs Trolley. The woman who had refused the seat turned to me, raging, and proceeded to critique Mrs Trolley's manners extensively and comprehensively, until I choked "I'm getting off at the next stop anyway, it's grand, it's grand", and hastily got off, smothering my laughter. Mrs Trolley was still sitting there, her trolley against her knees in front of her.

 Lucille Redmond's ebook, Love, gripping dark and funny stories of love and revolution, is available on Amazon and iTunes