"The bus! The bus! We need to hear about the bus!"
Well, I'm ready to tell my stories. But instead of rattling off a boring, "first we did this, then we did that, then we found that corpse in the 7-11 restroom" play-by-play, I've decided to present another handy guide, this time for riding the bus without offending nice people (okay, major snobs) like me. I promise that each and every anecdote is true. You've been warned.
~ The window seats are always taken first. If you're interested in sitting by the window instead of on the aisle - and if you're going to be on the bus for 20+ hours, that window starts to look mighty fine - try to find out where people are headed on their trips. As you board the bus, perusing the other passengers and finding the least objectionable person to sit next to, go ahead and be friendly. Strike up a conversation. Say, "How far are you going?" If you're heading east from Portland, steer clear of anyone going to North Carolina. If you're heading west from Salt Lake, the cute 18-year-old going to Ogden is your best bet. When she leaves, you get her seat. No fuss, no muss.
~ You'll probably eat on the bus at some point. Please, for the love of Mike, pick up your garbage and take it with you when you leave the bus. Come on now - you're riding Greyhound, but you're too good to pick up your own Doritos wrapper? How dirty can it be? You just ate food out of it, didn't you? Nothing screams "white trash" like, well, trash. Toward the end of my rides, I was amazed at the sight of the bus floor - it gave a convincing argument that humans are indeed descended from the apes.
~ This point cannot be stressed enough: HYGIENE. Those of us with working smell-buds would really, really, really appreciate it if you would bathe yourself and your children, and don clean clothes (including underwear), before you subject us all to your scent. When I say "some people had B.O.," you would probably assume from that statement that the O. came primarily from the armpits. If only. Other parts of the B.s also contained large amounts of O.; one family possessed so much O. that each time one of them stood up, I was compelled to (discreetly) plug my nose. Pyew.
~ Leave your bosom friend, "Mr. F Word," at home. He's really not as welcome as you might think.
~ Bring a CD player or MP3 player for the inevitable times you'll find yourself riding near other passengers whose constant companion is Mr. F Word (like the "well-known in New York" graffiti artist directly behind me).
~ Better yet, do what another girl did: bring sleeping pills - Lunesta with its green floating butterfly of death is a popular choice - and offer one to these ardent F Word fans. They'll probably think, "Cool, free drugs" and settle down to sleep, giving you at least five hours of uninterrupted, un-F-worded bliss.
~ Try to match your music choices to your reading materials. For instance, if you take along a classic novel like Jane Eyre to read on your journey, perhaps choose something classical like Brahms or Mozart to listen to - "Celtic Woman" also would be good - as opposed to a less obvious choice, like "Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' Greatest Hits." Somehow, reading of poor Jane and Mr. Rochester's unfortunate situation loses some of its heartbreaking charm when Frankie is screeching "WALK LIKE A MAN!" in your ear.
~ It's rarely necessary to use the restroom on the bus. I didn't use it once. The bus stops often enough that even mouse-bladders like my mom can "hold it" between stops.
~ Forget sleep - it's not gonna happen unless it's a total accident on your part. Remember, the bus is like the hospital: around the clock, about every ten minutes, some annoying idiot (in this case, the bus driver) flips on the lights and announces something, loudly, while your light-deprived eyes screw up in agony and your body crumples miserably, trying to find a comfortable position. Except in the hospital, you're not spooned up next to a 300-pound Neanderthal. If sleep wants you, it knows where to find you.
~ Take copious notes about everything that happens. You think you'll never forget, but you will.
~ If you ever have the opportunity to ride the bus with Carrot Jello, don't let her give you crap about taking copious notes. Tell her Millie said to put a sock in it.
~ Keep your complaints to yourself. No one really cares how upset you are about the lack of restaurant choices in Stanfield, Oregon. They're all having the same miserable time you are, so stifle it.
~ Be grateful for blogging. Thinking, "This is gonna make an AWESOME post," changes your entire perspective.
~ Don't let your kids ask for napkins at the Burger King in Mountain Home, Idaho. The chick with the long dark ponytail is quite the yeller.
~ Where possible, try to discover the state of the bus' wheelchair lift. If it stopped working in Denver, odds are good that it won't work in Boise either. You'll spend 45 extra minutes stopped over in Nampa, where the Nampa Fire Department will have to come and take off the wall of the bus and extricate Scooter Lady from her spot. The upside is that the Nampa Fire Department guys have great attitudes and pass out stickers to the kiddies. Some people would even have called them "attractive," but all they made me think was, "I wish Bunny were here so I could gaze into his crystal-clear blue eyes and bite that big muscle on his knee."
~ When the bus driver turns off the lights for the night, no matter how romantic you find the bus to be or how amorous you might feel, do NOT take this as a cue to get freaky with your neighbor. Like the couple who boarded the bus in Ontario, Oregon, if you engage in "Bill and Monica"-esque behavior in the backseat with numerous children less than three feet away from you, you WILL incur the wrath of the all-powerful bus driver, who will flip the lights on and say, "To the couple in the back seat! CONGRATULATIONS! You have just voided your tickets!" and throw you and your partner off the bus in Baker, Oregon, subjecting you to the stares and giggles of every other passenger. Not only will you be embarrassed, but the passengers will begin to resent you when the bus driver keeps the bus lights on for another hour (just in case someone else decides to take their chances).
~ No matter how much the above situation might amaze, astound, and amuse you, don't call up your poor sleeping husband (who must wake up at 6:00 the next morning to meet your bus) at 11:30 PM and apprise him of what's been going on. Although, I must say I was impressed that Bunny was awake enough to observe, "What - they couldn't wait till they got to where they were going?"
~ Don't pass up the opportunity to commemorate this hopefully once-in-a-lifetime event. I was so inspired by "Bill" and "Monica," I bought a nifty mood-alicious ring at the truck stop in Baker, so I could remember them forever.