| When I was in college, in the prehistoric days, I | | | | break. The trip, boring and tiring as it was, wasn't |
| was a veteran bus traveler. I am not talking | | | | that bad and we were making good time. I was |
| about the city buses but the kind you would take | | | | going to have to spend three days, count them, |
| from city "A" to city "B" three states apart.You | | | | three days traveling in a bus.Well, somewhere in |
| know the kind of which I speak. I am talking | | | | Tennessee, I think, the bus driver decided to stop |
| about the long-distance ones that smelled not | | | | somewhere in the middle of the night for a bite |
| unlike you were stepping into an ashtray on | | | | to eat. It was, as I said, in the middle of the night |
| wheels. There was always the peculiar smell of | | | | and while we all slept he took a little extra time to |
| cigarettes, beer, and that nursing home smell that | | | | do God only knows what. |
| you encountered when you went to visit your | | | | His little rest stop put us late getting into |
| 900-year-old aunt.The seats in those | | | | somewhere (I forget) which caused me to miss |
| nastiness-on-wheels buses were positively | | | | my connection. In addition, it was snowing, |
| nightmarish. I still dream about them. I think I | | | | delaying the next bus I could have taken. |
| suffer from (among many things) a | | | | I had to spend two days in a bus station, with no |
| post-traumatic bus-seat stress disorder. Those | | | | hotel money, waiting for the worst snowstorm in |
| seats were little butt seats. I mean you had to | | | | the history of mankind to clear up so the |
| have the butt of a 10-year-old dwarf child to sit | | | | appropriate bus could get there.I called my |
| comfortably in them! And, if you were lucky, | | | | parents and made them swear they would fly me |
| there would be some duct tape covering the hole | | | | back to Arkansas after Christmas should I |
| where someone smuggled drugs or where there | | | | survive this ordeal. |
| was a spring ready to impale one of your butt | | | | That was the last time I ever rode a bus in |
| cheeks.The floors! My God, the floors! There was | | | | America.Now come with me to Mexico: My wife |
| always something sticky covering the floors and | | | | and I went to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas, |
| they were a necrotic-tissue color--black. I am | | | | 2004. We took the ENT bus line. This thing was, |
| positive they contributed to the assortment of | | | | and I swear to you, like the first-class section of |
| smells that wafted into your nostrils on entering | | | | the most expensive airline only magnified to the |
| the bus. | | | | power of 1000. |
| The bathrooms in those buses were virtually | | | | As you got on, they served a lunch and drink. |
| impossible to use. If you managed to drop your | | | | There was a galley for your tea or coffee |
| britches to use the toilet and sit down, you were | | | | pleasure. There were two bathrooms in that bus. |
| assured of a skull fracture from being propelled | | | | CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? The seats were |
| off the thing as though someone suddenly jerked | | | | big-butt seats, like on a first-class airline, and were |
| the toilet up and forward when the bus driver | | | | actually comfortable to sleep in. There were |
| (probably drunk) accelerated. | | | | private headphones for music or for watching the |
| Once, I had to take a bus from Clarksville, | | | | movie. |
| Arkansas, to York, Pennsylvania, for Christmas | | | | |