Bus Adventures with Michelle:

I just wanted to share a little story about an incident that happened today while I was on my way to PHG this Monday (Nov 7th).

I got on the Royal Oak 239 Bus at North Van and there was an old man on one of those remote controlled wheelchairs and he was parking his mini vehicle in the bus. I got on and everything was all good but as I sat down in front of the backdoor exit (it was a single part bus) I heard some babble from the front.

The guy in the wheelchair (lets just call him old man A) said to another elderly man (old man B) something along the lines of “…you should go back to where you came from…” in which old man B replied “thats a racist comment! that very phrase of telling me to go back to where I came from! I am Quebecois! You go back to where you came from! I am Canadian!”

This was when I thought to myself “ooooh noooooo GET ME OUTTA HEREEEEE~~~~~”

—BUT!—

Get ready, here comes the plot twist…

Old man A responded “funny thing is, I am of native aboriginal descent so you can shut your mouth -”

(PPPPLOT TWIST *INSERT DROPPED JAW MEME*)

Anyways, at this point they just started bickering and there was a mother with her teen and she tried to diffuse the argument to little avail by repeating “Gentlemen, gentlemen, please! There are children! (her daughter) Please try to respect the other passengers! Gentlemen, gentlemen!”

Funny thing about that is that she also said “today is such a beautiful day! it’s sunny as well too, lets not do this gentlemen,” when it was obviously not sunny – it was raining and the sky was grey … A for effort though?

Thankfully, our bus driver made a witty comment that completely diffused the escalating quarrel by saying

“Guys! Let’s stop arguing, it’s not like we are Republicans and Democrats!”

The joke totally caught everyone off guard and we (including myself) just laughed because it was quite funny.

 

Upon reflection:

This incident made me think about the power of jokes when it is used effectively. In this case, I think that it was used very effectively as it created a common ground for all of the passengers on the bus. To a degree, it united us as “Canadians” because the joke was one that made fun and differentiated us from Americans (placed us above them to a degree). In order to diffuse a dispute, the Americans were used to be seen as the lesser of us. I guess it could get a little dark if I go into detail about how we, in a sense, bonded through making fun of Americans and established a sense of common ground through an agreement (laughing at the joke) that we are better than them. BUT I WON’T~~~ I am just thankful everything worked out. Phew.

I just think that the situation was funny story with plot twists and thankfully it was ended smartly and swiftly before it flared up. However, I think it also brings up some interesting complexities of social interaction and often-unnoticed subtleties that exist in society… How there is an entitlement to the land and a blurring of what makes one “Canadian”… How disputes can be solved by creating a common ground and how that helps bond everyone together – through the humiliation of another group… (our morals and the situational exceptions for straying from them…)

Anyways, hope this was somewhat interesting/entertaining!