A survey among bus passengers has revealed that only one in every fifty buses now has a regular "fruitcake" passenger. Bus companies have placed full page advertisements in all the major newspapers to try to recruit and train new applicants. The survey of 10,000 passengers produced surprising results.
When asked whether they would prefer a bus journey to have at least one passenger who sat beside them on an otherwise empty bus and spoke strangely to them, 9,000 said they would prefer this to not being spoken to at all and found the experience of having a surprising and unpredictable travelling companion exhilharating. Approximately 500 said they would prefer no nutter of any kind on the bus. 300 said a friendly drunk would be desirable and the remaining 200 preferred to have a scruffy masturbating hobo as a companion.
Bus "head cases" have been steadily diminishing in numbers since the 1990s when it was common for bus companies to store them up in a holding area and allocate them to buses individually. One reason for the decline in numbers is thought to be the introduction of CCTV and GPS systems to stop fare dodging. Unfortunately this has had the side effect of discouraging genuinely weird pests and perverts from travelling by bus. Also the withdrawal of free bus passes for perverts has hit the less wealthy surprise travelling companions in the pocket.
It is hoped that the recruitment drive will result in the replenishment of nutter stocks before they completely disappear from the planet. To compete with railroad nutjob levels, which are showing a slight increase, bus companies are working on the provision of a customisable imbecile service at a cost of approximately $10 per journey.
