Saturday, June 18, 2005
Ridin' the dog to Mobile, Ala.
Last night was bizarre.
I left Savannah in the late afternoon on a bus for Jacksonville, made interesting by the incessant prattling of the lady behind me. She kept talking about how she needed to get to her mother's house in Brunswick, Ga., in time to see Stargate, which apparently started at 6:30. Somewhere in there, she handed me a pamphlet on how to be a Jehovah's Witness. I knew they didn't celebrate birthdays or holidays, but did you know they can't eat meat unless "it's been properly bled"? I wonder what that means, exactly.
So I get off the bus in Jacksonville, and get on one for Tallahassee. There were a couple of nuggets from that trip, including an absolutely spot-on euphemism for taking Greyhound, so simple it's brilliant. A man was in Jacksonville in lin in front of me, about to start a two-day trek to Vegas. I guess his wife was going to meet him there by plane, and he said, "That's always the way. She gets to take a four-hour flight and I get stuck ridin' The Dog." Maybe it's my addled brain, but I think when you get past the obvious allusion, and it's even funnier. Imagine trying to ride a dog anywhere, even a big one. It would be slow, uncomfortable and dirty. Anyway the other gem from that leg of the trip was my initiation into the screaming baby syndrome common among complaints about The Dog. What's more, the kid was in the seat directly behind me, in his mother's arms, so his wailing little mouth was about 12 inches from my inner ear for the entire 10-minute infant anthem. When it was over, I felt better about myself for not having complained.
But those were just the warmup acts for the Tallahassee-to-Mobile leg.
So we all squeeze onto this bus, and a couple people don't make it, relegated to the next one two hours late,r at 2:15 a.m. Everyone is tired, the coach is about 90 degrees, and the driver is agonizingly conscientious, counting up everything three times over. Then he realized there's one person missing, a "chick" from way in the back. Normally, I wouldn't relate a demeaning term, but this girl did a terrific job of demeaning herself. The held up the bus for 10 minutes while, as the driver said, "she paraded around the platform" in very few clothes. When she finally did get on the bus, she complained loudly about the heat, hiked her shirt up nearly to R-rated level and parades up to the front of the bus, ostensibly to address to problem with her best pal, the meticulous driver. Well, the driver was there, ready to answer questions or concerns, but this girl just wanted to walk. She just turned around at the front of the bus and strutted her way back to the back without saying a word about the heat.
A few minutes later, we're on the road in the dark, and she starts hitting on this dude in the second-to-last row. He's digging it, we're all listening, and their talk is priceless. Get this: he's two weeks off a 10-year hitch in the Florida state correctional system, and her boyfriend just went in for a life term. Well, after about 15 minutes they shuffle seats to be next to each other. 20 minutes after that, the talk isn't so loud anymore, and a little while later, some dude goes back to the bathroom and we all hear a burst of nervous laughter. Somebody a few rows up started singing Lollipop just barely audibly.
Anyway, the fun didn't stop for me when I arrived at Mobile, but you'll have to read about that on the official blog at:
www.courierpostonline.com/blogs/mccann_america.html
Next up is Mississippi. Yee haw.
I left Savannah in the late afternoon on a bus for Jacksonville, made interesting by the incessant prattling of the lady behind me. She kept talking about how she needed to get to her mother's house in Brunswick, Ga., in time to see Stargate, which apparently started at 6:30. Somewhere in there, she handed me a pamphlet on how to be a Jehovah's Witness. I knew they didn't celebrate birthdays or holidays, but did you know they can't eat meat unless "it's been properly bled"? I wonder what that means, exactly.
So I get off the bus in Jacksonville, and get on one for Tallahassee. There were a couple of nuggets from that trip, including an absolutely spot-on euphemism for taking Greyhound, so simple it's brilliant. A man was in Jacksonville in lin in front of me, about to start a two-day trek to Vegas. I guess his wife was going to meet him there by plane, and he said, "That's always the way. She gets to take a four-hour flight and I get stuck ridin' The Dog." Maybe it's my addled brain, but I think when you get past the obvious allusion, and it's even funnier. Imagine trying to ride a dog anywhere, even a big one. It would be slow, uncomfortable and dirty. Anyway the other gem from that leg of the trip was my initiation into the screaming baby syndrome common among complaints about The Dog. What's more, the kid was in the seat directly behind me, in his mother's arms, so his wailing little mouth was about 12 inches from my inner ear for the entire 10-minute infant anthem. When it was over, I felt better about myself for not having complained.
But those were just the warmup acts for the Tallahassee-to-Mobile leg.
So we all squeeze onto this bus, and a couple people don't make it, relegated to the next one two hours late,r at 2:15 a.m. Everyone is tired, the coach is about 90 degrees, and the driver is agonizingly conscientious, counting up everything three times over. Then he realized there's one person missing, a "chick" from way in the back. Normally, I wouldn't relate a demeaning term, but this girl did a terrific job of demeaning herself. The held up the bus for 10 minutes while, as the driver said, "she paraded around the platform" in very few clothes. When she finally did get on the bus, she complained loudly about the heat, hiked her shirt up nearly to R-rated level and parades up to the front of the bus, ostensibly to address to problem with her best pal, the meticulous driver. Well, the driver was there, ready to answer questions or concerns, but this girl just wanted to walk. She just turned around at the front of the bus and strutted her way back to the back without saying a word about the heat.
A few minutes later, we're on the road in the dark, and she starts hitting on this dude in the second-to-last row. He's digging it, we're all listening, and their talk is priceless. Get this: he's two weeks off a 10-year hitch in the Florida state correctional system, and her boyfriend just went in for a life term. Well, after about 15 minutes they shuffle seats to be next to each other. 20 minutes after that, the talk isn't so loud anymore, and a little while later, some dude goes back to the bathroom and we all hear a burst of nervous laughter. Somebody a few rows up started singing Lollipop just barely audibly.
Anyway, the fun didn't stop for me when I arrived at Mobile, but you'll have to read about that on the official blog at:
www.courierpostonline.com/blogs/mccann_america.html
Next up is Mississippi. Yee haw.
