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People who say they don’t ride Metro buses because they’re “dirty”: the worst, right? But after watching the above video, in which an S bus passenger is 1) vomited on; and 2) threatened with a possibly nonexistent machete, you might start to think that Washington’s most insufferable residents are on to something.
Our protagonist is an unknown man in a scarf, facing off against what appear to be two very drunk guys. According to Wendy Singerman, the S bus passenger who shot the video Saturday night, the fight began after one man (seen on the right in the video) heard the automated announcement about assaulting a bus driver. After he tried to make a joke about the announcement to the man with the scarf, their relationship soured, with him accusing Scarf Guy of being a terrorist.
“I’m an American, I like food,” Singerman recalls the man saying. “I like eating lots of food.”
When the video begins, the argument has awoken the baseball cap-wearing man seen on the left, who vomits on Scarf Guy (jump to 0:25 for the money shot, as he realizes his sad situation). The man on the right seizes on the vomit as proof that he has an ally on the bus—-Singerman says they weren’t together—-and starts telling the hapless driver that his new friend will stab him with a machete. Given his state, though, the threat doesn’t seem credible.
Because of construction on 16th Street NW, Singerman says, the bus driver had no room to pull the bus over and deal with the troublemakers. But the ride didn’t last much longer—-after the puking, everyone had to get off the bus.
“The way the guy jumped up and looked at his elbow was so funny,” says Singerman. “I felt so bad for him.”