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The Curse of the Not-Benches
You know what I mean. I mean the skinflinting, ugly, outrageous and stupid not-benches now cluttering up our bus shelters. They’ve been there for a while and are annoying me more and more.
Assuming you would get on a bus in the first place. I can understand if you wouldn’t because bus journeys always involve waiting for the bus to arrive and there is nowhere to sit in our modern shiny, moving-postered, arrival-of-buses-displayed bus shelters.
Except the not-bench. The five inch wide cunningly tilted not-bench which you can’t sit on. You have to perch awkwardly, with your bum constantly threatening to slide off the not-bench, requiring constant muscle jiggling in your legs. It’s tiring and uncomfortable and it wouldn’t surprise me if many people — especially elderly or handicapped people — shun bus shelters for that reason.
Why did the bus company, instead of installing a proper bench or even seats, put in the not-benches?
Obviously, it’s their terror of the homeless. Their fear lest some Bad Homeless Person should manage to lie down on the bench and get a bit of kip, or even sleep off some poison.
Because that would never do, would it? It would never do if a bench installed by the bus company allowed anybody to lie down or even sit in comfort, because obviously they’re all Bad Homeless People.
