bus seat contamination

Was having a casual conversation with my two mad friends about whether it is, in fact, possible to catch a disease from a manky seat.

You know, a seat on the train. Or the bus. Or the tube. Which comes into contact with thousands of asses every day.

And those asses may be riddled with, say, crabs. Or syphilis.

They argue that there's no way I could catch syphilis from a bus seat.

I beg to differ. Maybe someone sat there without their pants on? (It's totally feasible on the night bus. Come on. The night bus is riddled with vomit by 1:00am.) What if someone with syphilis sat on the seat without knickers on, and then someone else sat there without knickers on?

Boom. Hello syphilis.

Think about the 345 from Peckham for a sec.

They say it's not possible. I say if it's possible to get syphilis from a toilet seat, it's possible to get syphilis from any other kind of seat. Wrapped in cloth.

(And frankly, any article about syphilis starting with "Ok, here's the deal has gotta be good.)

We are pontifying this and I came up with an equation to prove to them that one could catch a nasty disease by making contact with a bus seat. I thought maths would make them shut up.


public person carrying disease + bus seat = disease on seat;
public person carrying disease + toilet seat =disease on seat

(x) + (bus)y = z
(x) + (toilet)y = z

Only variables are bus and toilet.
Which both equal z.

Which means you can catch something from a bus seat. Yes?

I was kind if jesting though.

Until a scientist came along (thanks P-BP! You're a frigging genius. With a lot of time), actually sat down, and literally created an equation to prove that one could get syphilis by sitting on the bus. Naked.

Dude.

He uploaded it onto my wall. And we are well impressed. (more so, me, as he goes to conclude that my theory is actually correct.)

Which kinda means we shouldn't be sitting on bus seats naked. In case you do do that. No judging here or nothing.
The master copy:

Wow.