double trouble

Remember how last week I had two tickets for DC....well this week I had none.

My day planner, which I swear by, told me that I had a bus ticket with a time and ticket number -- A -02. I went to print it out, and no ticket. I checked my text-ticket, no ticket. I went onto Bolt...no ticket in My Trips. I frantically called M and he quickly found that every bus line, except Greyhound, was sold-out. Credit card information was exchanged, and I picked up my ticket from the kiosk.

The line was long. I somehow got on the 5:00. There was mass confusion. I got the first window seat behind the driver. I asked a second driver sitting across the aisle if I had time to throw out my coffee (cold blueberry coffee from lunch...very old and cold)...he said there should be a garbage outside. I walked off the bus, saw a Greyhound employee and asked if I could run inside and throw out my coffee. He gestured for me to hand it to him. I reluctantly did so...and he threw it, threw it, into the bus lot...some of it splashed on some suitcases! Thanking him, I quickly walked back to my seat.

Mass confusion, people confused, Greyhound confused. Someone is in the BATHROOM already...and seats are filled. A woman sits next to me and spills ice all over me and my seat. She had a cup of half melted-ice. We pick it up from my seat which is now soaking wet. Her daughter/niece/or relative of some sort is sitting behind me. I switch seats with her -- to be nice, to not have a wet seat, and to not have to listen to them talk back and forth the entire trip.

I do not watch my DVDs - Northanger Abbey and Dr. Katz. My DVD player wasn't fully charged -- I expected to be on a bus with some outlets! I read and finished the Memory Keepers Daughter. I cried, on the bus. I texted about crying. My seat-mate (not the best, I will be kind and not say what I really think) asked me what I was reading. I couldn't even explain. I cried.

I read HeyDay. I did not cry, but I am now interested in finding where the quarantine hospital for sick immigrants was located on Staten Island.

We get to DC quick. Quite quick, despite there being a fire near/in the Lincoln Tunnel. We had 2 drivers, they drive tag-team...maybe that helped. So quick, quicker than Bolt ever got me anywhere. Nobody outruns the Hound. Speed may beat outlets.

The bathroom -- no seat. Just a hole. With everything sloshing around in blue inside. Outhouse style. I use it anyway.

Get to DC. My cab driver talks, I listen.

Fast ride, Bad seatmate, Sad book...but at least I got on..Greyhound and their first-come, first serve philosophy once again works to my advantage.