A comic story including bus stations, Gerry Springer, airports, overweight bikers and cute brainless girls. -- (I figured we needed more comedy this week.)

Tuesday morning, September 11th I got up at 4:15 in order to make a 6:20 flight out of Newark to San Francisco. Fortunately, it was an earlier flight and on a far cheaper airline than the ill-fated flight from Newark to San Francisco that day. I got on my flight and promptly fell asleep on my way to my first layover in Chicago. I stumbled off my plan in Chicago and on to the next leg in my journey. I was sitting there grumbling to my neighbor about how damn small the seats are on ATA, when they re-opened the doors and ordered us off the plane.

I then spent about an hour staring at the TV like the rest of the world before it occurred to me -- I'm in Chicago, I can't leave, and I have nowhere to stay. I called Amtrak and about 500 hotels. Amtrak was shut down and the hotels were sold out. The airport was kind enough to wait another hour before kicking us out on the streets. Did I mention that Chicago had shut down its train?

Fortunately I was able to crash at Rich's parent's (Phil's Aunt & Uncle) house where I was treated to a great meal and got to sleep in Rich's old room. For those of you interested, Rich has a lot of doilies and porcelain dolls in his room -- It explains a lot.

The next day I worked my way back to the airport, which was supposed to open at 11:00 AM. I arrived at 10:00 to find the doors barred shut. Nonplussed, I sat down on the curb to read the 1,100 page book I bought the day before. About an hour later I was approached by a young woman armed with a pen and pad, asking me if she could interview me. I shrugged as if I am interviewed all the time. Her first question was why are you staying here since they say the airport isn't going to open today. I very intelligently answered aaahh, ummmm. I have probably since been immortalized in whichever paper that was (I never heard of it.)

I promptly queued myself up for the payphones since my cell phone's battery was low and my power cord needs to be taped in just the right position to work. ATA (formerly known as ValuJet) told me they could book me on the flight the next day. I figured I might also win the lottery. Amtrak was working, and sold out. But Greyhound was running and could get me back to my car at Newark airport in a mere 17 hours. I was on my way. A bus left in a paltry 5 hours and I wanted to get a seat. Little did I realize that Greyhound didn't limit the number seats they sold to the number of seats on a bus.

So I trained and walked my way to the bus station and crammed my way into the overflowing station. I got my ticket only 3 hours before departure and began my quest for a plug where I could tape my power cord just right so I could recharge my cell phone. I found one outside on the steps next to a loud group that had just been on the Gerry Springer show.

The large, short haired girl closest to me explained that they were on the show the day before. She then explained how they made up a story for the show. The tall scrawny guy with red spiked hair and pierced tongue, and the other guy with a mullet and a cowboy hat were supposed to be gay lovers. she was engaged to spike, her sister was engaged to mullet and her starched-blond haired mother wearing the skin tight faded jeans was sleeping with both of them (Mullet & Spike, not her daughters) She claimed it was all made up. I guess they just had the 'Gerry look'. The rub was that they were supposed to leave the day before, but their flight was canceled. Gerry wasn't returning calls so they couldn't stay at the hotel another night since they had no money. They did get a check for the appearance but the bank was claiming it was fake. Sounds like a Gerry Episode -- sadly I missed the conclusion.

To the other side of me a small man with a German accent had a cabbie helping him raise $22 to afford a bus ride home. Another cabbie was yelling at the first cabbie that if they did help this guy he would tell all his friends and the next day there would be lines of people asking the cabbies for money soon after.

Armed with my charged cell phone I battled my way back inside to see about my bus an hour and a half before it was supposed to depart. The screen said it was only supposed to be an hour late. I noticed that there were already a large number of people lined up at the door for the bus. I scoffed at the fools and managed to get a seat and worked more on my book. About a half an hour later it occurred to me that there were more people waiting than could fit on a bus. I went up and asked the lady at the information booth. She knew nothing other than that the bus could leave anytime and I should get in line.

I got in line and started talking to some software engineers from State College, a pregnant woman named Nora from Manhattan and cute little flight attendant named Sonia. We used Sonia as bait to get the Supervisor to stop and talk to us. We pointed out to him that there was no way this many people could fit on a bus. This hadn't occurred to him, but he came up with the brilliant idea of adding two more buses that he had ready while we waited for the other one to arrive. Brilliant man.

After a bum rush to the doors I was able to get on the bus and Sonia sat next to me. As we pulled away, the bus driver announced he didn't think buses were going east of Cleveland and he didn't understand why Greyhound told us otherwise. Oh joy.

Sonia and I had some intellectually stimulating conversation. For example, She had me listen to a disk she had from a band in South Africa. She asked me if I heard of it. I responded 'no', and she began "It is a country that..." She nodded knowingly when I explained I had heard of the country, just not the band. But she was small, smelled nice and pressed interesting body parts against me while sleeping.

We arrived in Cleveland a little after 1:00 in the morning. The bus driver gave us reboarding passes as we got off, while explaining that this bus would be going no further. I asked an attendant at the station what I should do with the pass and she told me to stand in the line at door 4. I walked in the station to find it packed, with over 100 people already in line at door 4.

Sonia, Nina and I made friends with Eric from NYC, Sue from Newark, and her skateboarding friend. Sue was well tattooed, wore a crew cut and took buses everywhere. She took out her pillow and stretched out on the floor as people stepped over her and stood within inches of her head. After watching 6 police and security guards surround and search an African woman in African dress that might have been Arabic, watch an express to New York go before us, and then have boarding passes from busses that came after us get called, Sonia and I were able to get the last two seats on a bus around 4:30. The bus driver tried to stop us, telling us that our reboarding passes were invalid, but finally gave in.

Sonia got on before me and claimed the second to last seat in the back of the bus. I saw the last seat towards the front next to a large, long-hired, bearded gentleman wearing a Harley outfit. I squeezed in past Joe to claim my seat next to the window. Joe smiled at me, allowing me to sample his breath as he overflowed into my seat. I think it was the roundness of Joe's body that allowed him to sleep while leaning forward. After the novelty of this wore off I noticed some unfortunate side effects. When Joe didn't lean on something, he swayed significantly -- often pressing me against the window. To avoid this Joe would sometimes lean against the seat in front of him. When he fell asleep he would lose his balance and his elbow would come flying towards my stomach. Thankfully he would catch it in time. To avoid this, Joe would lean against the armrest that I forced down between us. But again Joe would slip. This time he had my leg to help catch the fall of his elbows. What else are neighbors for?

Luckily for Joe, he was able to sleep on and off all the way to Newark where we sadly had to go our separate ways. As a last leg, Sonia's friend Mike gave us a ride to the airport to pick up our respective cars. One would think that someone who worked in the airport would know how to get there. It only took Mike a few tries and u-turns to get me to my parking lot.

I have never been so happy to be in Newark, or look so forward to a drive down the Jersey turnpike. I think for vacation I might take Greyhound to Hawaii, but Sonia didn't think you could do that.