Safe Arrival

So I am back in BC, a little worse for wear...

Let me tell you about my bus trip...

I arrived at the bus depot with plenty of time to spare, and stood in line so as to try to get a good seat (ie not beside children)...

The line behind me started to grow, and grow... Eventually making a critical mass... Critical mass in a bus depot is defined as the point where it becomes apparent that there are far more people than bus seats, and an orderly line disintegrates to form a mob of people massed around the ticket kiosk...

but god bless their hearts, those greyhound employees, for an extra $45 you could purchase preferred seating... Merry Christmas, Everyone!!!

For an extra $30 on top of their prefferred seating I could still get a plane out to Vancouver...

And this is regardless of the fact that at this time, I have a ticket which says I am on the 8pm bus leaving from edmonton... There was going to be hell to pay if I didnt make it on that bus... Well... I wasn;t gonna tell them that i had offers for christmas in the city and that it would have been a dissapointment to not make it home, but not a major upset... For all they were gonna know, my dying grammas last wish was for me to be sitting at her deathbed at midnight on Christmas when they pulled the plugs to her respirator...

So they start letting the people who purchased the prefferred seating onto the bus, while the rest of us are shaking our fists angrily...

Then they come up with the bright idea of adding a second bus at the same time... where the second bus came from I have no idea... but it's not 45 minutes after the schedualed departure time, so I can't really say that this whole thing was planned out... I mean, 45 minutes is almost enough time for them to drive in a spare bus from calgary...

Anyways... It's a mad house... And I get the clever idea to act really gay, so as to provide reason for parents not to let their children sit next to me...

This is the second time that acting gay has saved me, the first being that time at montanas when 'man voice' tried to seduce me with jiggly dancing and beer...

But yes... no children sat next to me... thankgod... At this time, both buses are full... But there are still 20 VERY ANGRY people yelling outside the doors of the buses...

I ignored the... I had my seat...

So I played my game boy, and went into and out of reality... When I awoke from my first slumber, I realized that the older asian lady who had sat next to me was caressing my leg...

yes...

caressing...

her eyes were closed... so I think she was 'sleeping' but oh god was it creepy...

in edson I made a dash for the washroom and tim hortons... I used the food as a reason to angle myself slightly more away from the asian lady (switching seats awasnt an option due to the fact that the buses were PACKED)...

i played a little more gameboy, and then had another nap... Woke up again with hr hand on my thigh... Not caressing, and not particularly close to the goods, but creepy nonwe the les...

Scenes of Euro Trip flashed though my head...

I adjusted my seating position, while in the process removing her hand from my leg... And then placd my hand on my leg as a buffer should she start exploring again...

Thankfully she got off at Kamloops...

We almost hit a deer... The bus driver was already meandering in and out of the lines on the pavement as much as I could bare... Maybe he was doing it to keep himself concious... But regardless, we're barelling along when a deer jumps across the road... He brakes very suddenly, and we're all heaved forward...

Then a second deer starts walkin across the road in front of the bus...

He brakes harder, we're now lurching forward, almost skidding... he lays on the horn as the deer appears not to be moving anywhere

Then the third and forth deer jump out of the bushes, startled by the horn...

We're still trying to stop...

Then a handful more deer go running... We are not able to come to a complete stop, ad they're all across the road... They're probibly thinking "pedestrians have the ROW, idiot"...

Oh... did I mention that there were a few crying babies... They didnt go for the whole trip... but they were there...

And a mentaly disabled person who felt the need to tell me his life story... but he needed to tell every thing in triplicate

"did I.. Did i tell you... Did I tell you about... tell you about the did I tell you about the time I..."

Doesnt make for a captivating story...

Or the old guy who smoked a cigarette at EVERY STOP!

spruce grove, wabamun, entwistle, ninton, edson, obed, hinton, jasper, valemont etc etc etc...

And he was smoking every time with the bus driver... so it wasn't like there was gonna be a threat "stop smoking so much or we'll leave you behind at the next stop"

I cannot believe there as enough room on the bus to store that many cigarettes

So in conclusion...

No more bus for me ever...

Now Im gonna go play in the heavy rain...

I missed rain!