Megabus at Rest
5/19/19 — 7:40am
I take the bus a lot.
Usually Megabus from NY to Baltimore and Baltimore to NY. I love the price. I love the street cred/cache it carries when in conversation. I’ve never felt like it’s a sign of inferiority. In fact I’ve always thought it shows that I ain’t afraid of shit.
What I don’t like about the bus is most of the same stuff anyone might dislike. The relative randomness of the seating process. Most buses operate like Southwest Airlines without the organization. Typically you get a boarding number but rarely is that system adhered too. People line up first come first serve and it’s not as if the Megabus attendant working the White March Park and Ride pickup location gives a damn about reorganizing the line prior to the bus arriving. Can’t say I blame them.
But I don’t mind that.
I don’t mind the noisy passengers with their noise cancelling headphones. Btw I’m so glad your headphones are canceling noise for you but they’re broadcasting your questionable taste in music to the entire bus. This is only slightly more annoying than the people who just don’t use headphones at all. Like the kid across from me playing Fortnite. Nothing like the soothing sound of a machine gun in public am I right?
But the main thing that I dislike is the thing I’m experiencing at this exact moment. The unscheduled rest stop, stop.
Little backstory on me, I like being punctual. I once said to a teacher in high school when I was late to a meeting that I was casually late. He replied, ‘It’s casually lame.’ He wasn’t wrong even if his witty retort sounded like something Mr Hand might have uttered in Fast Times.
And the dumb thing other than the fact that I’m 40 and that happened when I was 13 and yet I still remember it is the fact that I was never late. I hate being late. And so now we’re here at the Maryland House rest stop burning daylight.
The driver told us we’re leaving at 7:55. It’s now 8:02.
My favorite moment is coming. That’s when the bus driver who has willingly released 60 bus passengers into a rest stop returns to the bus and conducts his process for checking that we’ve all returned and are ready to continue. This consists of him walking up and down the aisle and doing a ‘count.’ And I’m not saying this is an ineffective method but I can’t count on one hand the number of times I’ve watched a passenger running at a glacial pace after the bus, attempting to wave the driver to a stop with their slice of Sabarro’s pizza in hand (cause you know there won’t be any good pizza in Manhattan).
It’s now 8:02a and the bus has started and he didn’t do a check. And we’re not stopping so I guess we’re all here. Personally I never leave the bus. I don’t trust the system and it’s not like the rest stop is any great shakes. It is funny how stoked people are when they arrive at them. Maybe it’s the need to pee but it always seem a little bit more akin to the race to the Wally World gate in Vacation.
‘Come on Rusty. I’ll race ya to the Roy Rogers and Claw Machine.’
At least we’re moving now.
I’ll write more when we stop at the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
-Matt.
