There’s some presumably dead wise person who said we learn from our mistakes. Usually this is true, because I’m pretty sure none of Taylor Swift’s exes have been her ex more than once. However, there are a few of us that contradict that adage, and I am one of them.
So I’ll title my story in the most professional way possible, since I’d like to become a career journalist. I’ll call it, “Greyhound Ride from Hell.”
Let me preface this by saying that Greyhound is an affordable option for those of us who can’t afford gas or planes. This makes me feel even worse that I only experienced this once, while so many do so regularly.
I could talk about how I’ve taken the GoBus to Cincinnati more than a dozen times and have been forced to stand during a three-hour trip after buying a ticket in advance and gotten lost at least three times because they tend to recruit drivers at nursing homes, but today I want to focus on Greyhound.
Upon getting an internship interview, I forgot about the torturous bus rides I had already taken and bought a Greyhound ticket to Cincinnati from a city near my hometown.
When will I learn?
The bus station was basically a sketchy, oversized gas station bathroom attended by a woman wearing head-to-toe camouflage gear over an almost-ready-to-go baby belly.
When it came time for our departure, there was no bus.
That’s when the attendee/soldier/mother-to-be kicked us all out into the 20-degree weather because the bus station had to close at 9 o’clock.
Enjoy your ride, suckers.
I waited in the car because this bus station is on the corner of Keep Your Head Down Lane and Concealed Carry Rights Boulevard. And then I waited some more, until eventually it was 9 p.m. and the bus was 45 minutes late.
When the bus finally arrived, I waited for the former passengers to get off. This didn’t take long — they were all running each other down because they were so close to death after waiting a whole hour to smoke.
If only we could get people to run to the polls like that, democracy would finally reach its full potential.
Then it was time to settle in and listen to a conversation about which prison has the best food.
Sloppy-joe Saturdays, no way!
The bus smelled of rotten eggs and there was a baby screaming her lungs out. That’s my favorite combination of sound and smell, so I’m assuming someone tipped off the bus driver as a token of affection.
The bus made a stop in Columbus and when I got off I was scolded for not registering my luggage. Shoot, the luggage registry at the original bus station must have been somewhere between the chained-up vending machine and the “No Profanity or Violence” sign.
I was then forced to sit in the Columbus station for a half-hour. Within the first five minutes, a man asked me in a mock sexy voice, “Can you do me a big favor?” and an old woman in just a hospital gown walked by, mumbling something about crab cakes.
I never found out what the favor was, but I hope that lady got some crab cakes, or a doctor.
After boarding the bus and enduring air conditioning pumping like we were driving around a bus full of menopausal mommies, I got to Cincinnati ridiculously late.
The bus driver said, “We’re glad you chose Greyhound today!”
A man in the back promptly yelled, “We sure as hell ain’t!”
Preach it, my friend.
Jackie Runion is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University and a columnist for The Post. Tell her what you think at jr178409@ohiou.edu.
