Grayhound Bus Stories

[WillyBrandt]

It seems everytime I've ridden these things, I've encountered the weird. Stories:

- Once, I was taking a 7am bus from a nice college town to Miami. At the station, the guy in front of me said:

"Hey, you know, I didn't have to pay for my ticket--you know who paid for it?"
"No"
"The Florida Department of Corrections. You like the Gators?"
"Uhh..."
(He lifts his shirt; underneath is a Gators shirt.)
"How old do you think I am?"
He's bald and a little bewrinkled. I stupidly said "40?"
He got really angry and stopped talking to me.

- Another time, an early bus ride. Every empty seat was next to another person, so I'd have to be a pain in the ass to someone. As I walked down the aisle, people--without opening their eyes--put hands on the empty seat, abruptly and completely rolled over, moved seats in a flash--just unreal.

- I took a long trip next to this 14 year old kid who seemed to have bloodied gums, and he kept talking about Gameboy.

- Bus driver to passengers complaining about an overlong bus trip--there was some scheduling error or something--he said to them: "You're saying you've been on this bus too long? I've been on this bus for 20 years, and if I hear you bitch I'm kicking your fucking ass off!"

- An ex-girlfriend visiting me took the Grayhound. On her return trip, a woman's boyfriend came on the bus, threatening to kill her... then he left the bus and then the ride was fine.

- A buddy took the Grayhound from Seattle to Miami (yes, that's right). In Chicago, somebody punched the bus driver! In the head! She was some big fat lady, and somebody just went up to her and punched her. The guy was some crackhead or whatever, and they pulled him off of her, and the police took the guy--but still.

[Wickerman]

1. In the 60's I used to go to my Aunt's house

120 miles away - an all day ride with a changeover in the big city - all by myself. I was 8 or 9 when I started. It was cool, I saw all kinds of stuff - Junkies shooting up in the bathroom, winos sleeping in their pissed clothes. Soldiers heading to Vietnam, returning home. Much more interesting than my aunt's farm - or home.

great stories.

[Catch22Dem]

2. Tulsa to NYC

Pretty uneventful, I guess, but I did meet this dude from Kentucky. I'm from Okla. and I couldn't understand a fucking word the dude said. He was from the hills. Had never been outside his hometown and was traveling to somewhere in PA, I think.

[EstimatedProphet]

3. Yup, Greyhound is like another dimension, isn't it?

I used to take it from Missouri to Saskatchewan when I was in school, and I swore I never would again, because it was a pain, and the weirdos I would encounter:
-Once, I was on my way back to school, and stopped in Tennessee (I had to leave from Atlanta that time) and this kid gets on and sits down next to me. He asked me what I was doing, I told him I was going back to school, he asked me what I was studying, and I said "well, you can ask", trying to make a joke, and he comes back with "So you're just spending money." Real condescending tone. Twit. I didn't talk to him for the rest of the trip, which fortunately wasn't far.
-Got to listen to a late teens girl going to college in the Sioux City SD go on all night about the "wild and crazy" pranks she would pull, like taking street signs that had fallen down. She was a real Professor Chaos...
-The driver on the trip once, because it was his last day I think, went out of his way to make the trip go SLOW. Scheduled arrival in Winnipeg was 11:30, we got in at like 3 and I had to sleep in the station on my suitcases because I missed the transfer. The driver was doing 15 miles under the speed limit on a 4 lane, took an extra half hour for lunch, went on a scenic tour of North Dakota-pretty much anything you could think of to slow things down. We were all pissed off after that one.
-I was scheduled to take the civil service exam in Saint Louis once, a 3 hour trip on the bus. The bus driver decided to wat for another bus to make sure there were no connecting passengers, and didn't leave until 1/2 hour before the test was supposed to start. Wasted my test fee for nothing.
-Took the Greyhound from Atlanta at Christmas one year while I was in grad school in Mississippi. The bus broke down twice leaving Tuscaloosa, for a total of 3 hours sitting by the side of the road. When the driver finally got in touch with headquarters, they told him to keep going anyway, once the bus was up. Of course it broke down another 10 miles down the road, where theere was no facilities to help. Had to call a friend and get a ride back to campus.
I won't do Greyhound anymore. I'll walk first.

[jburton]

4. the "Welcome Aboard" announcement

Right after leaving the bus station.

"The bathroom in the back of the bus is for your convenience. It is a bathroom, not a smoking room or a get high room."

[Snoggera]

5. I have helped someone leave on one

and many weeks later, helped her find her way home.

Greyhound is a learning experience.

[XanaDUer]

6. I have an Amtrak story...

We were on the train from Miami (yup, Miami FL) and there was:

1. A drug overdose at the Fort Lauderdale train station and then...

2. A murder on the train around Ocala. We sat in the train, with no a/c, for about 6 hours.

We were on our way to somewhere safe: NYC.

Last time I took the Silver Meteor, or whatever it was.

PS-If Amtrak was that bad, I don't even want to contemplate Greyhound.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

7. I was 17 and on a 5 hour layover in Knoxville, TN

Some dirty old man wanted to get me drunk and take me back to his place.
Never went Grayhound again.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. Baltimore to College Park in the early 80s...

I had my violin with me, and was studying a score, when this guy sat next to me reeeeeeking of whiskey (as if the bus didn't reek enough of stale cigarette smoke and diesel fuel). He said he was a musician too, and I politely nodded and continued staring at the score, trying not to let the odor drive me to nausea.

"Yup," he said, "I play drums. Lemme show you."

Then he reached over and started pointing along the score saying, "Yup....That's a beat...an' that's a beat...an' that.I think that's a beat..." moving closer and squinting at the score, "Yeah that's a beat...."

And so it went for the entire journey. I was so glad he didn't exit at College Park, especially since by that time I'd managed to get a horrific migraine. As I was leaving, he asked for my phone number. Lying through my teeth, I said, "Thanks, but I've got a boyfriend."
"Oh," he said, a little disappointed, "Well...You want mine?"
:crazy:

[frogbison]

13. Have "gone Greyhound" many times

over the years. In my teens, it was a way to get to my relatives in the cities (MPLS) for a visit. In my early twenties, I used the bus lines, along with my young son, to visit friends in Pittsburgh. The stationmaster at our departure terminal, Indiana PA, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer some months later and I don't think anyone ever was brought to justice.

Most recently, I took the bus from Ohio to Duluth, to visit my birth mother's sister, an aunt I hadn't seen in 25 years. (I'm 50 now) It was very interesting. From the young fellow openly smoking pot - and sharing! - to the professor on leave from university in Minnesota, to the late night layover in Chicago, it was all pretty interesting.

The professor, on a stop at a McDonalds, spent over $8 on food for himself...and ate all of it. I thought he was pretty strange, yet he, I and another fellow had a wonderful conversation for miles about the stae of the union.

[Laughing Mirror]

9. Greyhound Philadelphia to New York City last October

All passengers, including crying babies and frightened small children, had to go through a security check, bag check (security went through every bag, went through everything), metal detector check. We were each frisked before we could board the bus. It took awhile. There were a lot of us. The bus was crowded.

The ticket, which only costs something like $20 for that 2-hour trip, could only be bought with a credit card. Something they could trace you by. No cash was accepted to buy a ticket.

[NewHampster]

10. You know that Spelling Checker Thing

Please use it.

[WillyBrandt]

12. And a pleasant hello to you, too.

Never too busy to be petty, eh?

[NewHampster]

14. sorry I realized that after I posted too

I get like this when I should be sleeping.

:hi:

[LDS Jock]

11. Oh the memories

Lets see... In Denver someone offered to sell me drugs, not sure what it was because I ran off. I was only about 17 at the time.

A few years back in El Paso we picked up a guy who was a football player at New Mexico State. He was HOT. Turned out he was gay too. By the time we parted in Los Angeles, we had shared more than just the seat together.

In Dallas the bus ran out of gas about half a mile from the station. Rather than wait what we were told would be almost two hours to get a bus out to us, some of us decided to walk the last half mile, through downtown Dallas at around 2AM. Scary.

Outside of Dallas on the way to Austin during an ice storm, the bus started sliding and hit a car. We had to stop and do all the offical stuff with the police and the person driving the other car. The police made us all fill out forms for anyone who was watching when the bus hit the car. Of course I was one of those and had to fill out the long form.

On the way home to see my mother in Arkansas, someone robbed an elderly man during the night, taking not only his money but his shoes as well. :( He was probably about 70 yrs old.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones that come back right off the top of my head.

[Submariner]

15. 1966 in Skid-row Los Angeles bus station at 4:00 AM

I was asleep on the bench waiting for 5:00 AM bus back to Longbeach Naval Station. I woke up to find an old pervert drunk had unbuttoned my 13 button bell-bottoms trousers and was ever so gently reaching in for my package.

I woke suddenly startled yelling WTF are you doing you ******. I'll never forget his words; "Aw please man..let me s**k your d**k, I need it."

I had an anti-gay complex for a couple of years after that, but got over it, and never went into a bus station or on a Greyhound since.

[AngryAmish]

16. Had a dirty old man try to pick me up in the Chicago bus station in 89

He thought I was a runaway. I suppose I should dress better.

[DrWeird]

17. Elderly woman loudly talking to herself the whole 6 hours.

She was having quite a conversation with herself regarding nuclear physics and metallurgy. Being a scientist myself I thought I might chime in, but she actually had most of her facts straight so I kept my big mouth shut.

[Piperay]

18. Took Greyhound once from LA to SF

was a bad experience when I got there two guys came up one on each side of me tried to rob me. I had seen them from a distance as they exchanged this "let's do her look" so I was prepared and managed to take a running stride which attracted the attention of the security guard and when they saw him they beat it out of there. Whew, that was the last bus trip I ever took. Especially in big cities they always have the terminals in the worst part of town. The bus ride itself wouldn't be so bad, the worst part is once you arrive and have to run a gauntlet of lowlifes. :-(

[regularguy]

19. Chicago to NYC, 1984....

Stopped at rest stop somewhere in Indiana, I think, about 3:00 AM. I thought this was our official break so I went inside to get some coffee. As I come out the bus is leaving and I'm racing across the parking lot screaming and waving my arms. Someone must have seen me because the bus driver stopped just before pulling onto the highway and let me in.

[peacefreak]

20. A couple of years ago

I was in Boston, waiting to go north. The bus was getting full when a woman boarded with a baby carrier. My first thought was "oh shit a crying baby all the way home". She walked down the aisle & sat across from me. The baby was gorgeous, full of smiles. It took me a minute to realize she had no arms. New reality was that child would light up the room & people would forget what they percieved she was missing.

[Champ]

21. One time

I was riding it, I can't remember I was going. I rode the Greyhound Bus atleast 30 times. Well this drunk guy who kept talking the whole time seemed to be annoying the one girl and she kept saying ok and stuff to everything he said. Well he gets up and yells something along the lines like I want to let everyone know that I'm marrying this woman. It will be a wedding on a big hill and your all invited. Not surprisingly no one clapped or cheered, they all seemed to ignore him. Well we come to this stop and he gets up to walk out, when the bus is ready to take off you see him with cup of coffee(probaly with alcohol in it, he was drinking alcohol with coffee throughout the bus ride. Well he trips or stumbles I'm not sure and he spills hot coffee all over this guy's girlfriend missing the baby that was in his arms. He gets up and beats the shit out of him, it wasn't even funny. He had a black raindrop tattoo under his right eye so I'm sure he wasn't messing around. Well the bus driver orders all 4 of them off the bus(drunk, man, girlfriend, and baby) and calls the police. I'm not sure what happened after that because the bus took off.

[FunBobbyMucha]

22. 1980, Charleston W. Va. depot, dead of night

I had my one and only near-sexual assault. I'm a teen traveling from Ohio to NC, and a creepy, cough-syrupy smelling man follows me to the lower level men's room and tries to corner me in a stall, licking his lips. I delivered a desperate, nut-cracking kick to the groinal region and ran up the flight of steps.

Then on the bus in the wee hours I got hit on by a woman who identified herself as "the most successful voice-over talent in Austin," but I couldn't navigate the oral sex I was hoping for.