Everything that will ever happen to you on the Sprint bus

Ahh the Sprint bus. Looga’s most – and perhaps only – heartfelt transportation system that helps us students get from the union to Pilks. But it isn’t always a smooth ride, as we all well know.

You will get held up by those who don’t know the difference between the campus shuttle and the bus to town

It’s 10.49 on a Thursday morning and you’re feeling the consequences of last night’s 15 VKs. You’ve decided to brave the wind and are currently embarking on a journey to your 11am. You’ve made it with 11 minutes to spare but your lecture is on the other side of campus. Then you see it – the campus shuttle. You look at your watch. It’s 10.51. You see the bus pull up and you breathe a sigh of relief as you think nine minutes will be more than enough time for you to make it to your lecture.

You prepare to board the bus when it happens – the person in front of you asks for a single to the town centre. Oh no. You panic as the sudden realisation hits you that the person in front of you has mistaken this campus shuttle for the bus to the town centre. Prepare for at least six minutes of the driver trying so desperately to explain to this bewildered individual that this isn’t the bus to town.

You will ignorantly ask for a return

This common mishap usually occurs when you are nothing but a mere silly fresher. You and your new bffs decide to leave the confinements of campus and head out to Luff town centre. Determined to show the world that after two weeks of living away from home you are now the quintessential independent woman, with your head held high you ask the bus driver for a return. Big mistake. The driver looks at you. The passengers on the bus are looking at you. The people queuing behind you are looking at you. Everyone is looking at you. Sweat begins to trickle down your forehead as the driver informs you that sprint buses don’t do returns. Just a single then yeah?

You will see at least one of your lecturers on the bus

Believe it or not, numerous lecturers go without the luxury of a swanky car and are subject to the sprint bus just as we students are. For some bizarre reason unknown to mankind, not a lot of lecturers want to settle down in Luffy town and prefer to commute. This is the reason as to why many of your journeys to town or the train station, will involve avoiding eye contact with the person that is currently marking your essay you had three weeks to do, but instead decided to start it three hours before the deadline. Your journey will be spent with you staring at the lecturer while they’re not looking, attempting to telepathically convince them into giving you a first for a piece work that, in reality, deserves nothing more than a low 2:2. They on the other hand, will spend their journey engrossed in a book and not notice you at all.

You will lose your seat to bags

Just like those who travel on the dreaded London underground, there are just some people in this world that refuse to sit next to people they don’t know on public transport. If there are no seats left on the bus and you see a passenger’s bag placed on one, prepare to stand. They’re not moving that bag for nobody. Do you smell? Are you scary looking? You’ll never know. All you can do now is spend the journey eyeing up the bag while struggling to maintain your balance. You’re in for a bumpy ride my friend.

Your friends will sit at the back of the bus without you

Sometimes it’s nice to take a squad outing to somewhere different, and when I say somewhere different I mean Nottingham or Leicester. Whether the purpose of this trip be shopping, eating out, or perhaps a bar crawl – you’ll have to get the Sprint bus to the train station. Sounds fun right? All aboard the banter bus and all? Wrong. You’ll get on the bus and all your friends will run to the back, leaving you to awkwardly shuffle behind. Before you know it, there’s no room left at the back and you’re sitting on your own. You turn your head to see your friends having the time of their life on the Sprint bus – laughing, joking, buzzing for what’s ahead. Alas, you cannot join in as one does not simply shout frantically across the sprint bus.

You will see that person that you know, but don’t really know  

The girl you made best friends with in Echos toilets that one night in freshers. The boy that sits next to you in that deathly silent seminar who lent you a pen one time. That person who lives in the flat two floors above you whose name you don’t know. People you know, but don’t really know. No matter when or where you get the Sprint bus, these individuals have a habit of getting it at exactly the same time and place as you. Now you’re faced with a dilemma: do you act as if you are completely absorbed in this Facebook post regarding the 21 most delicious Nutella recipes, or do you say hello, and pray that this individual is getting off the bus way before you. You decide to do the latter, only to find out that they too are getting off at exactly the same stop as you. Queue 15 minutes of awkward small talk: “So… did you go out last night?”.

The driver will give you daggers for paying for a £1.60 journey with a £20 note

If looks could kill, you’d be dead.