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A Public Service Fog

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It was the last run of the shift, the sun was setting, and the air inside the bus was thick with the scent of teenage rebellion and something far worse. Between the Bluetooth beats, fruity fog and an unidentified chemical weapon left behind by a pensioner, I found myself refereeing a strange kind of peace treaty, with vape clouds as our only line of defence.

School’s out, vapes are in, and one mystery stinker nearly derailed the lot. A tale of teamwork, tolerance, and a tactical haze.

There’s a certain breed of chaos that only arrives when school’s out and the sun can’t decide if it’s setting or just sulking. You know the kind, restless energy, hormonal banter, and that dangerous combination of boredom and Bluetooth.

Interior of a dimly lit city bus filled with golden vape mist; silhouetted passengers sit among the haze, with a shopping bag trolley in the aisle and low sunlight streaming through the windows.

I’d clocked the group as soon as they boarded. Usual weekend suspects. Faces I could sketch from memory, fair dodging routines rehearsed like a school play. One of them tried the classic "left my pass in my cousin’s car" routine. I gave him a look that said, “So has everyone else today, son.” But I let it slide, final run of the shift, bus going out of service soon, and frankly I just wanted to get to my break in peace, with all my limbs intact and the windows still attached.

Two minutes after they sat down, boom. Music.

Not bad, actually. Bit of a beat. I almost started tapping the wheel. But then it crept louder. Passengers started giving me the Look, you know, the “are you going to deal with this or shall we all riot?” look.

So I pulled in at the next stop, hopped out the cab to stretch the spine, and gave the scene a quick scan. That’s when I saw it.

The vape mist.

Not just a puff, a weather system. Low sun slicing through the windows made it look like a Pink Floyd concert up the back. Honestly, it was almost artistic. Almost.

I made my way down, rehearsing my "lads, public service, shared space" speech. Sat down beside them like a disappointed uncle and got the expected teenage deflections.

“We’re not even being loud.”

“It’s just peach flavour, it’s not even bad.”

“That guy’s on FaceTime and you’re not saying anything to him.”

Fair play. They weren’t wrong on the last one.

Anyway, we reached détente on the music, volume down, earbuds in, peace resumed.

But the vape situation? Tricky.

I was mid-negotiation when the real crisis struck. A voice piped up from the middle of the bus, strained and accusing:

“That’s no vape I’m smelling. Someone’s let off a serious one.”

Cue the ripple of revulsion. Windows down, noses pinched, eyes watering. People looked personally betrayed.

Now, here’s where it got surreal. Because instead of finger-pointing or meltdown, something rare happened.

We united.

We theorised the culprit (general consensus landed on an elderly passenger with a heavy shopping trolley who’d disembarked a stop earlier, plausible, evasive, and statistically likely). Then, in a moment of pure collective genius, the kids offered a solution:

“We can just vape more. Drown it out.”

And we did.

They puffed like dragon-obsessed fog machines, the rest of us cranked the windows wide, and together we coasted the final few stops in a DIY air-freshened peace cloud.

No more complaints. No more music. Just mutual survival and a faint hint of tropical fruit.

Sometimes public transport is less about rules and more about improvisation. And sometimes, just sometimes, a well-timed peach vape is the only thing standing between you and chemical warfare.

_

Meta description: Vape clouds, backchat and a mystery fart, just another summer shift with the weekend regulars and one very tactical detour.
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