The Bus of Enforced Jollity

Surly and I often seem to find ourselves in situations where we think "Why is nobody else laughing?" I shall be doing a series over the next week of the Adventures of Surly and Kellycat. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The offices where Surly and I work are on the outskirts of town, on an industrial estate. One of the “benefits” of our employment is that our company lays on a free bus to ferry us into the town centre two lunchtimes a week, or three times a week in December.

The driver of this bus is Les. Les is not familiar with smiling. Neither is Les familiar with the courtesies of driving, or the concept of right of way. Consequently, Les is now known as Road Rage Les, but only behind his back, for obvious reasons.

I was the first to board the bus this lunchtime. I was greeted with a bus bedecked in tinsel, broken Christmas decorations and more bizarrely, feathers and “Happy 1st Birthday” balloons.

Les is a man who is very fond of his colour printer and his clipart. We usually have two signs on the bus. One informing us that our driver is called Les, which is the only reason we know his name, as he is not the sort of man for introductions. The other sign politely requests that we not eat food or drink, enforced by “This means you!” Today, we had a third sign, wishing all at our company a Merry Christmas. I have no way of proving the sincerity of this sign.

The bus had the air of having been decorated for a “special” outing. If Brian Potter had organised a day out, this would have been the bus, and Les would have been the driver. As the bus had been stuck in traffic, we bravely nominated the most senior manager on the bus to go and ask Les if we could have an extra five minutes. A grunt was given in response. We didn’t press to see if this was in the affirmative or not.

On the return journey, Les suddenly remembered that he had a Christmas tape. I swear I detected a smirk as we were made to travel back to work listening to "Mistletoe and Wine" and "We're Walking in the Air."

Bastard.