Translink announced they’ll be temporarily reinstating the No.8 Ballybeen Estate bus as joint union strike action is set to shut down public bus services across Northern Ireland.
Bosses confirmed they’d be restoring the much cherished service to minimize disruption for Ballybeen residents.
‘We can confirm that the No.8 bus will return to active service, just as soon as we find someone mental enough to drive it’, said a Translink spokesperson.
The news was greeted with cheers as residents of the housing estate gathered outside Translink’s Head Office on East Bridge Street.
‘Ach we’re over the moon so we are’, beamed 82-yr-old Ethel McMelter.
‘I’m looking forward to having a wee feg on the buses again’.
‘It must be 25 years since I’ve sparked a Silk Cut Purple while sat beside a pregnant woman and her 3-year-old chile’, recalled Ethel.
‘Dopey’ Dave McBride is looking forward to showing his teenage son how to hitch a ride by stowing away inside the vehicle’s boot.
‘Our Nathan’s never experienced the joy of running down Culross Drive after the No.8 and sneaking a lift down the road’.
‘That’s how I got this here wee cheeser’, said Dave, whilst pointing at a nine inch scar running down the left-hand-side of his face.
Meanwhile, 77-year-old Cecil Greener cannot wait to clear the phlegm in his chest by spitting it all over the floor at the back of the bus.
‘That’s why kids these days are constantly sick. They’re not exposed to enough germs’, spluttered Cecil, while gobbing a lump of mucus onto the backboard of the seat in front.
Following an outcry from parents who couldn’t be fucked giving their children a lift to school, there have been calls to reinstate the No.188 school bus which used to depart from the old Ballybeen Square.
Retired driver Alex Dennis, 64, had the enviable duty of transporting a carriage full of unruly spotty little bastards to Grosvenor High School every morning for the better part of a decade.
When Mr Dennis was informed about the news at his home in Gilnahirk, a tear of pride fell from his eye that wasn’t permanently damaged by laser pens.
The retired bus driver then recounted some of the harrowing journeys he made through the suburbs of East Belfast two decades ago.
He said, ‘I remember the day I was told I’d be driving the 188 bus. My hands trembled as I looked at that route which started in Ballybeen Square’.
He continued, ‘I then had to navigate my way past Tullycarnet and then onto the Braniel. It was almost as if someone hand-picked the most mental places in East Belfast for a laugh’.
‘A combination of bad breath and body heat meant that the windows were steamed up to the point I was literally driving blind through housing estates’.
‘Being stabbed in neck with a compass or struck full force in the temple with a rubber was pretty distracting too’.
‘Occasionally, someone would draw a large spunking penis on the window. I could just about see through the outline and managed to get to the Castlereagh Road where I’d unload the fuckers’.
Despite the horrible experiences, Alex considers himself one of the lucky ones. He told us, ‘At least I got the morning shift when most of them were still half asleep or hungover. My mate Dessie got the 3.20pm slot. He couldn’t live with what he’d witnessed and threw himself under his own bus four years ago’.
The Dundonald Liberation Army 