My Last Time Riding ANYthing with 4 legs

Ever since I realized that clouds weren’t made of marsh mellows and saw a clip from an episode of 60 minutes of some amazingly pre-camera phone era shot of an airplane spiraling into the ground, my preferred methods of travel have always been those that require wheels rather than wings. And, though I do have my dose of Lorezopam pre-flights nowadays, I flew enough this year to put me on a high-risk list, making this trip one that would more than likely remain on the ground.

Prior to today’s travels, my knowledge of the Greyhound Bus system was limited to recent canadian greyhound murder story and the dog that my moms old homosexual hair dresser had that would run around like a rat with bits of human hair all over it’s body. Hardly excitable, but being both frugal and freaked of flying, I took a chance. Besides it was only 10 and a half hours, with NO stops or changes. BULLSHIT GREYHOUND!!!

Admittedly the first mistake was mine. It said on the “e-ticket” very clearly that the ticket need to be printed, and thankfully Kailee was able to sprint, yes kailee sprinting, to the nearest hotel and produce a paper copy. Apparently my blackberry and smile weren’t enough… After boarding the hound, I quickly realized how seriously my driver took his job, first noticing his holster, no HOLISTER Charlie, fully equip with two pens, a pocket knife, and an ambiguously shaped case that could have either been a hand-gun or his tampons. He hopped on bored and checked the bathroom for any homeless people that may have wanted to hitch a ride to Canada and gave us a safety briefing where he reminded us not to smoke, masturbate, or talk on cell phones for more than 30 seconds. And so we began…

The first four hours were easy. I slept, wrote, and peed 3 times almost without missing. Then came every tiny town in between Syracuse and Buffalo on and off the “stop-less” greyhound. I listened to the sounds of children, children being beaten, children reacting to being beaten, the enormous woman next to me snoring, (I wish I was kidding, really) and the sounds and smells of people opening and closing the restroom door. The only perks of this journey have been the outlets available for every seat, which enabled me to edit my bonnaroo footage and create this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY59BZEuRK8

Then we get to Rochester and I realize that the first douche-bag driver took my 3rd ticket instead of my first one. But thankfully I have all of this information on my black-berry and there is a ticket counter which would of course be able to look up my information and verify my story, especially since it would have been impossible for me to have duplicated my ticket since every ticket has a name on it and everyone shows there passport to get on the bus. One would think…

I get up to the front of the line and I tell the woman that the man-over-there (literally he was right there) took my incorrect ticket and she laughed and said “likely story” and sent me to ticket counter minutes before my bus pulled away. The unhappy woman who looks like that cross-dresser from the Wedding Singer at the ticket counter, says “sorry I can’t reprint tickets” as I’m showing her my itinerary on my phone. I buy a new ticket and try to be angry and say that I’m going to do something like I’ve seen my mom do when the room service is wrong for the 3rd time. But instead as I’m walking to get on the bus, I see the nice man reach for my luggage and just start crying, hysterically, and this overweigh black luggage man is so confused yet so kind and asks me what’s wrong and if I’m ok. And at this point there’s no stopping, I’m about to embrace this stranger and cry into his arms, when the ticket lady comes over and tells me I can get my money back. But of course my charge that was made 2 minutes prior required a 20% fine, but at least I’m on. Everyone on the bus, having seen this all happen, invites my on warmly. And in the end, I got a whole row to myself.

My cousins rehearsal dinner started two hours ago and I’m sitting at border patrol waiting for the a-hole on my bus who decided to bring too much booze across the border. It’s 8:30pm and I haven’t eaten since the veggie burger from hell at Burger King at 10 am. My arrival time was initially 6:15 and I’m still 2 hours away….rarr BORDER PATROL GET A CLUE: all of the marijuana is running the other direction!!! It’s amazing how the question What are you bringing? can make you feel like El madre of a drug cartel.

Needless to say this is my last trip with greyhound, and it should be yours too. Feel free to write them hate mail and mass murder every grey dog you see. Any suggestions on how to get from Toronto to Indianapolis on sunday?