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| (This picture is not mine, I stole it from https://www.greyhound.com/.) |
The downtown Las Vegas Greyhound bus station is something straight out of Mad Max. Well, if you replace nuclear war with meth... pretty much the same concept though. Within 2 minutes of entering, a little panicked I was going to miss my bus leaving in 10 minutes, I had a fine gentleman try to start a fight with me. I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I'm also a fighter, so its not a good idea to get between me and a trip to Africa. However, I tried to calm down the man (honestly I was staring, the guy had dice and numbers tattooed on his neck, I was curious...) and succeeded in time to be told I was in the wrong line to get my ticket printed. Ok.
So I get my bags tagged and I hop in line JUST in time. 12pm. Lets get the hell out of dodge for the love of everything sacred. Well, thankfully Greyhound is known for its consistency, and they didn't disappoint! For the 3rd time in a row, my bus broke down in the station and caused a delay of ohhhhhh 2.5 hours. Thats roughly half the time it actually takes to get to LA from Vegas. This gave me time to wait for the bus on a hard metal seat that smelled like someone had recently died in it, sandwiched between a couple arguing loudly over which drug they preferred most and a drunk guy who repeatedly asked to use my cell phone to call Hawaii. No. There is a payphone in the corner.
During my sabbatical in the station, I came up with several interesting theories about why Greyhound stations seem to attract the weirdest people. One was that there were certain people who got to freshman year of highschool and were like, "yup, just about perfect. Better stay like this for the rest of my life." I mean, there was a guy wandering around in a hunting camo jumpsuit with a shirt reading "B@#$s Ain't..." peeking out, complimented with a cap tilted to accent his gentlemanly state. Halfway through, the guy who wanted to fight me (exercise would have been nice at this point) found himself what he apparently considered an attractive, if larger, black hooker with dreads/cornrows to make out with in the corner. You may shudder, I sure did.
Thankfully, my friends Steve, Vince, and the beautiful Maya Ram came to ease my suffering a bit. The strange part of it was, WE were the minority there. I mean, if we had smoked some crack and not showered for a week beforehand no one would have blinked twice, but everyone stared at the clean kids in the corner. They had to get back to real life eventually, so I patiently sat back down with my NEW friends, listening to philosophical musings on the best way to get out of drug charges ("tell the police to F#@$K off man, thats what I do, cause I'm smart!" was the suggestion on the guy in pajamas in the corner with gauges in his ear.)
Soon a line formed for the door that would lead me to LA and out of this madness, so I hopped in. I was only a few people back from my new friend with the neck tattoos that wanted to fight me, who was still passionately groping his newfound l soulmate. I prayed REALLY hard (not something I normally do) that he was in the wrong line. As luck had it, he left the line and station for what was described by the lovely princess of piety in his arms as, "the best $60 special of your life." My luck was changing.
Before you know it, I was on the bus and passed out until we parked at the LA station. Soon after that, my friend Bryan pulled up in his prius and we left as quickly as possible before getting mugged. I have a feeling that even though I'm headed to Africa, that might have been the most dangerous part of my trip.
Greyhound. Only in America folks.
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