The national express experience...

as the Divine Comedy put it, ‘take the National Express, when your life’s in a mess.’

as a frequent megabusser i was recently driven to the observation that whoever it was that said, ‘it’s not the arriving but the traveling that matters’ had obviously never had to spend time on the heinous blue bus of nightmares with some fat fucker pouting seductively on the side.

but actually:

the national express is actually nice. 

and I've been taking the megabus like a total shitmuncher all my life and being drooled on by people who smell like dorritos. that is messed up.

i decided to document my journey as i enjoyed its delights, so that the truth may be known:

13:02: the seats are shiny! and they have automated safety messages and its all lit from the floor by blue lights. most of all….. everything doesn’t stink of piss! c’est incroyable! Waynes World dance we’ve got 5000 dollars! we’ve got 5000 dollars!

13:11: THERE’S PLUG SOCKETS! with actual electricity coming out of them. good lord. you know when people say ‘this is the life’… i think this might be when they say it.

13:21: there is a noise periodically coming from the toilet that sounds like tiny machine gun fire. this is slightly impeding on my relaxation and enjoyment.

13:32: there will always be someone with a fucking awful ringtone that sounds like the Casualty themetune, ready to yabber away for more time than is humanly acceptable (if you are able to talk solidly for this amount of time you are, by definition, not somebody who should be listened to), laugh-snort like some kind of farm animal on ill-advised day release and generally happily ruin your day.

13:37: The drivers of my bus and another bus, going in the other direction (but also stuck in traffic and static on the outskirts of London) just had a shouted bus-drivery conversation over the dual carriageway barrier. Ace! i wanted them to high-five as well but they would have needed arms like a couple of stretch Armstrongs as we were like 5 metres apart..

15:13: phone woman is still fucking going. Hopefully that noise in the bathroom actually IS a tiny sniper, as she is sitting right across from it….

after this my phone battery hit ‘connect charger now!’ levels… so i had to stop documenting and conserve precious battery.juice for emergency Facebook stalking / emergency boredom-sexting (none occurred. disappointment!) / fastidious checking of the time every ten seconds to see if it was delegated snacking time yet.

and yes i do plan my snacking times. its kind of like playing good-cop bad-cop. but you get to be ALL the cops! keeps things spicy

we shall compare this experience as a specimen to a recently documented experience on the megabus:

First documenting:

Ohmygod. How do the most posh spazzyest posh spazz type people always manage to seek me out in life, like homing missiles in crap hollister clothes, and conduct their posh spazzy affairs so firmly within my earshot??

There's a guy two seats behind me who spent the first 10 minutes discussing his Actual gap yah (who does that in this day and age?? …surely some kind of offensive-cliche alarm should start going off in his brain..) and is now on the phone to his girlfriend, 

choice quote: “well yah your parents should be behind whatever you want to do, i mean they paid two grahhhnd for you to have braces so you could smile in photos…” I dont know what they’re talking about, but he keeps saying cringey / meaningless dawsons creek style cliches like, ‘you know i’ll do anything for you, you know that right?’ and generally being massively patronizing with his helpful ‘advice’.

Less hateful people might think this was cute. But those people probably shouldn’t look at my blog right now as its looking like for the next 4 hours its going to resemble the inside of my skull- i.e. A verbal massacreing of EVERYONE ON THIS BUS

Captain's log entry 2:

A text conversation

Me: I managed to use mind-bullets to keep the seat next to me free right until the driver started the engine. Then two FUCKING old guys came running on going ‘thank you thank you!’ and one of them has just parked his FAT ARSE next to me and is puffing and wheezing away right in my ear. thanks thanks so much….

Him: An old weezer eh? Well i suggest you per-chase a packet of peanuts and offer the old coot some, then use your mind bullets, cause him to choke to death and PRESTO! None more weezing! Xxxx

Me: Ah he’s stopped now. Perhaps he’s not such a bad old coot. But either way. He TOOK MY SECOND SEAT. Which was rightfully mine due to the fact that i really wanted it!! 

i also tactically planned to sit right at the front so that most people walk past and down looking for an empty seat, then when they dont find one they cba to walk back down so they just impose on someone near the back. If i’d sat near the back i would probably still have 2 seats. THATS WHAT HURTS THE MOST.

the man proceeded to offer me Doritos and chocolate which in my state of derangement made me hate him more, due to the fact that his kind behaviour had confused me by making me feel like maybe i shouldn't hate him.

when all i really wanted to do was HATE THE FUCK OUT OF HIM til we could all get off and go home. 

moral of the story: stay away from the megabus. and if you do not heed this advice, at least have the decency to never take my second seat!!