Just Say Goo

Ok. So I am in Malta with my buddy and we decided to take a tour bus to visit the island of Gozo. (Yes these places exist and everyone needs to see them before they die) My friend warned me about group activities with the general public, especially tour buses that are populated with English tourists... knowing full well that I am pretty anti-social and snarky. The tour bus was supposed to meet us at our hotel at like 8am so I was already kinda grouchy because I hate mornings. We wait. And we wait. And we WAIT. Its like 8:45, no tour bus, so my buddy goes inside to call and find out what the flip is going on.

They forgot to pick us up. Yes they did. So we are like WTF? They said they would send someone to drive us to the ferry and the tour bus would pick us up in Gozo while the other passengers were at some tchachka place (that sells all kinds of kitchy stuff). Fine. So we are totally mellow about the whole thing, even though the woman is apologizing left and right we are like "no big whoo dont worry about it."

The bus driver picked us up at the ferry landing and got on the tour bus, which is empty, and go back to the tchachka place to get everyone else. I am almost 6 feet tall and the bus is not, so rather than break my spine I sat up front otherwise it would take me 3 hours to maneuver myself in and out. I sit quietly looking out the window. In come the passengers, who knew we had been left behind. We go to a local church, get out and tool around inside. We then go to pile back in to the bus and I sit in the same seat I had before and stare out the window. my buddy is chatting it up with the bus driver because she is friendly for some reason I don't understand. I then hear "excuse me". I ignore it. I then hear it AGAIN, louder and more nasally. I am thinking "No one in their right mind would be talking to me, but just in case someone is feeling the need to live dangerously, let me turn around. I do. And there it stands in front of me. this short little man carrying a large purse.

I give him my best new york "what the fuck do YOU want" look. He proceeds to tell me "You are sitting in our seats" (he has his fishy wife standing next to him). I yawn and say "so". He says again "you are sitting in our seats". I give him the benefit of the doubt that he is deaf and say, LOUDER, "SO"? He moves closer to me, bad move on his part. I am thinking "little man one more step and I am going to beat you senseless with your man bag you douche" and he is going on and on and ON about how we are sitting in his seats. I told him "So what. It doesn't have your name on it. It is not assigned seating. When I got on this bus no one was on it so how the fuck was I supposed to know what seats were "empty", and since you insist on making such a big woo about it rather than sitting down and shutting your piehole I REFUSE to get up." Man bag and his wife decide to TELL ON ME to the other passengers! I haven't been "told on" since GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

I am sitting in my seat sending telepathic messages to my friend that she better get her ass on the bus or have bail money because I am 15 seconds away from getting up in this man's face and I know I could take HIM and his wife. He then tells me that he is from England and has taken numerous tours and everyone from England knows that everyone must keep the same seat as when they started and it is impolite to switch seats. So I tell him I am from New York and where I come from no one in their right mind would act out like he is over a damn seat on a tour bus and not expect to get the shit kicked out of him.

My buddy gets on the bus and is like "wtf is going on" and I proceed to tell her, LOUDLY, to sit down and get this man out of my face before I kill someone. She sits down and man bag and his wife take the seat behind us. The couple who WERE sitting in those seats gave them to them because of their acting out. So, the whole way to our next destination I explained to my friend what an imbecile, make that a LUCKY imbecile that still has his teeth left, the man bag dude is. We get off at yet another destination and I am still pissed. When it comes time to get back on the bus again we tell the bus driver to let everyone on before us so we can discover what seats are left for us, lest we have another "incident" with another acting out passenger which will clearly have me spending time in a Gozo prison. He tells us to just get on the bus. We give our best snarky "see? told ya you morons" look to man-bag and his fish wife.

By the end of the tour everyone liked us very much and totally stayed away from them, so their efforts to make us the bad guys didn't work. We toured around Gozo and had a blast. We all got off the bus and said goodbye to the tour bus driver (who was excellent btw) and suddenly he called us over. We walked over to him and he said "What was that guys problem? I am a tour bus DRIVER and I know and there is no such thing where you have to keep the same seats." we burst out laughing and went on the ferry, and I was on the lookout for bag-man and his wife so I could push them over the side. Double GOO.