PORTLAND, Ore. — These kids were not allowed to ride the bus without an adult -- or even with adults.
Two frisky pygmy goats attempted to catch a ride on a TriMet bus in Portland, Oregon, last week. The brothers, named Billy the Kid and Billy the Goat, were caught on surveillance cameras trying to board the mass transit vehicle, The Oregonian reported.
That lasted about 20 seconds before passengers shooed the goats off the bus, according to the newspaper.
Lrae Anderson said his 7-month-old goats escaped from their backyard enclosure and decided to nose around the neighborhood, KPTV reported.
“They probably had enough to eat and said, ‘Let’s keep on going,’” Anderson told the television station.
Abdellah Lahouasnia, who was driving the bus, said it was the first time he had ever had goats clamber onto his vehicle.
“Of course, keep Portland weird,” Lahouasnia told KOIN. “You would never see that anywhere anywhere in the States.”
Lahouasnia said he saw the goats waiting when he rolled up to the bus stop and tried to leave before they could board the vehicle.
“So I was a little bit nervous because I didn’t know how they will react in the bus with other passengers,” he told the television station. “They took it funny. They’re laughing, which makes me feel a little bit better. I was like, ‘Yeah, they left because they didn’t have a valid pass.’”
Anderson, 48, said he was incredulous that the goats crossed a busy street and tried to board the bus.
“They got on like they’ve done it before, Anderson told The New York Times.
Anderson, a rapper who also goes by the name Copper Loc, said his four sons sometimes forget to close the gate of the goats’ enclosure, according to the newspaper.
“They’re smart, so they’ll see the gate and, if there’s an opportunity and someone didn’t shut it right, they’re going through,” Anderson told KPTV. “And they’ll go to anything that’s green.”
After the goats were chased off the lime green bus, they wandered into a nearby shopping center, The Oregonian reported.
One of Anderson’s neighbors managed to corral the wayward goats later that day and returned them to Anderson, according to the Times. Anderson has since installed a lock on the goats’ enclosure and has made the fences more escape-proof, the newspaper reported.
TriMet posted footage of the goats on its Instagram account on Aug. 12, according to the Times. There have been more than 5.4 million views of the video, the transit agency said.
“The video of them boarding the bus has definitely sparked something in people’s imaginations,” Tyler Graf, a spokesperson for TriMet, told the Times in an email on Friday.
Not every passenger paid attention to the goats, according to the newspaper.
“I see the one lady (in the surveillance video),” Anderson said. “She’s sitting there and she’s on her phone and she didn’t even notice the goats on the bus. I was like, ‘What are they doing?’”
TriMet is taking advantage of the goats’ popularity, offering goat merchandise including T-shirts that boast the slogan, “TriMet is Goated.”
Naturally, the shirts are available in all sizes -- even for kids.