Transportation Adventures

Over the three day weekend last week, I decided to take a trip to Phoenix. I had some business to take care of related to going thrift shopping. Yes. Thrift shopping. Once every few months I head home to purchase bags of arts and craft supplies at my favorite Sun City location. The trips provide much needed (and affordable) stock for my Art Therapy office and the kids I work with are jazzed to rifle through the bags of goodies. I get to see my family, the kids at work are excited so it is a win-win situation for all parties involved. The complications in this blog come not from the trip, but rather the transportation.....the bus.

Due to my irrational fear of airplanes coupled with not wanting to physically drive of out Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon (rush hour is the worst), I did some research about the Greyhound. Price was fair...equivalent to two tanks of gas, time table was ok (one more hour than driving myself) and the thought of reading a book and listening to my iPod while in transit had me yearning for the days when I had more money and was traveling on trains through Europe. So I did it...I booked my ticket and arrived at the Los Angeles bus station via taxi on Friday afternoon.

Immediately I could sense some complications. A mile long line of luggage was behind door number fourteen....the door en route to Memphis. Memphis along with about two dozen other cities....one of which happened to be Phoenix. I placed my bag in the queue and did not budge. We boarded and amazingly had one or two seats to spare. I had an open seat next to me possibly because my row was one of the undesirable rows a bit too close to the restroom. We were on our way and things seemed to be ok. My sense of something wrong subsided and I enjoyed the first 30 minutes of my trip.

After 30 minutes or so, we made our first stop in Riverside. There were people waiting to board. Remember I had one of two seats next to me. When the doors of the bus opened, that feeling of 'something not so right' came creeping back. A man stepped up, hair unkempt, clothes unwashed, voice not quite came walking down the aisle. My DSM-IV radar kicked in and I knew we were dealing with a certifiably mentally ill man. It was like he scanned the vacant seats and made a conscious choice to sit next to the therapist. Despite several announcements from the driver regarding the-no-alcohol-on-the-bus policy, my new seat mate loudly and very boldly opened his 40. Hiding in the privacy in my headphones, I pretended that his voice did not actually overpower the loudest setting on my iPod. With Kanye West as background music, I heard stories of hell and damnation, the availability of drugs on Venice beach and the woman who he was trying to find in Vegas. I learned that he was a self proclaimed 'mamma's boy' and after a comment about people on the bus 'not knowing what was in store for them from the lord' I felt it was safe to say I was sitting next to a paranoid schizophrenic. My headphones did not shield me for long as I began to hear a very loud 'excuse me'. To make a long story short, I was involved in a conversation with him for quite some time about nice things he could do for his mother. My art therapy bias kicked in and we both agreed upon sending hie mother a drawing. All of a sudden, the bus stopped in San Bernardino and all passengers headed to Vegas were re-routed. My seat mate left and another one came on.

This new seat mate remained next to me despite three more stops and 7 more hours of travel. 5 of those 7 hours he was not adhering to proper seat etiquette and was observed not just using his seat space but half of mine as well. I kind of wanted my previous seat mate to return.

Our bus traveled on through the dark of the night and eventually, two hours behind schedule reached Phoenix at 1:30 AM. I grabbed my bags and hopped into my parent's car and stretched out. Something that was not possible in my back row window seat. And this was just my first round of travel.....I was looking forward to see who I would encounter on the return trip home.....

Reader, I will fill you in later on....