WARNING – This is a warning message to all members of the public, of a serious condition that affects all genders, ages and races. Brain Becomes Useless Syndrome, also known as BUS Disease, affects one in every three bus passengers. It is not yet clear what causes this bizarre phenomenon, and currently there is no known cure.
Symptoms include:
· Memory Loss – most commonly forgetting where you are travelling to or when you need to get off the bus.
· Disorientation – sufferers will find it nearly impossible to choose a seat on the vehicle.
· Speech problems – you will talk unnecessarily loud to your friend or on the phone, you will be unable to perceive how annoying this is to other passengers.
· Loss of spacial awareness – sufferers will find it impossible to judge how much room they are taking up in relation to the limited space available.
It is important to note that these symptoms only start once the sufferer steps onto a bus and only last for the duration of their journey.
The following case study is of a real person with BUS Disease and highlights the seriousness of the disease and how it can cause you to completely lose your mind.
Case Study: Mr Limp
In the case of Mr Limp the symptom of disorientation is particularly prevalent. Mr Limp was travelling with his wife when I witnessed his BUS Disease flare up on the bus last week.
Mr Limp entered the bus and sat down slowly in the seats provided for disable people and buggies. As Mr Limp was using crutches, this seemed to be the ideal seat for him to choose as it provided the necessary leg room and easy access needed by disabled people. However, this seat choice only seemed rational to someone who does not personally suffer from BUS Disease, and clearly Mr Limp felt that he had made the wrong decision.
He began to fidget continually and scanned the bus for a different available seat. He then glanced at where I was sitting, and asked if I would move so that he could have my seat. At first I was incredibly confused by this because I had minimal leg room and had found it difficult getting to the seat in the first place. However as I do not suffer from BUS Disease, it would have been impossible for me to try and rationalise the man’s decision, so I obediently moved to another seat.
Mr Limp then proceeded to hobble down the narrow walkway on the bus, which was not wide for him to use his crutches so he had to support himself by holding onto the backs of chairs on his way through. He then made three attempts to sit down before finally finding a way to pull his legs into the tiny gap between the edge of his seat and the back of the seat in front.
To my amazement, his wife followed him and asked him to move towards the window more so that she would have enough room to sit down – despite the fact that the seat on the other side of the aisle was free. By the time they were both settled, the man’s knees were pressed against the back of the seat in front of him, and his wife was sat with her back to him and her legs in the aisle with the crutches balanced on the chair on the other side of the aisle.
You may be wondering why on earth the man had made the decision to squeeze himself into a gap that provided only a miniscule amount of leg room in comparison to the seat he had first chosen. One can only assume that this was because he has a severe case of BUS Disease, and actually had no control over his actions. It is more than likely that he stepped off the bus and instantly questioned the stupid decision he had made.
It is worth noting that in this situation, the wife should not have allowed this behaviour to continue. One of the only ways to treat BUS Disease is to travel with someone who is not a sufferer, who can make you aware of your odd behaviour.
As a species we are incredibly successful. We have built skyscrapers and aeroplanes. We have decoded the human genome and can transplant organs from one person to another. We can build robots and can even predict the weather. We can do amazing, incredible things, and yet for some reason the vast majority of us seem to lose our minds when using the bus.
I believe that together we can find a cure for this phenomenon, but until then it is better to simply ignore sufferers.
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