Also, allow me to take this opportunity for a shameless plug.
I'm an awesome lighting designer and front of house guy. If you're a tour manager,
please hire me!That completed, perhaps an actual update is in order.
We made it home in one piece, which is more than I can say for my car. The VUE was totaled, and is still in Vail, Colorado getting repaired. The people at the insurance company (Progressive) are still being huge jerks - not only did they undervalue the vehicle, but for some
stupid reason that is completely beyond me, they keep trying to pay off my loan with the money that I'm going to get back from them - which would completely decimate my finances. Even after I told the agent assigned to me
multiple times that paying off my loan all in one go was not what I wanted to do, I heard from my credit union that she tried to go ahead and do that anyways. Grr.
It was with great pleasure that I canceled my policy with them the other day.
Anyways, after spending the night in an absolutely
decrepit hotel with
no bathroom door in our room, we took a Greyhound bus back to Des Moines, Iowa.
Let me tell you about the kinds of people who ride Greyhound buses.
These people are
all nut jobs. Every single one of 'em. There was the ex-con sitting across from me who complained loudly about how the bus driver was being a "bitch". There was the tall, bearded, black hippie who graphically described how to please women, and then proceeded to stand in the back of the bus (Right next to me, of course.) and give the entire section his rendition of what a Godly union between a man and a wife was - and he spoke far, far into the night. About halfway into the trip, he realized that he had lost his radio that he had bought earlier that day, and asked the entire bus to look for it. "But if any ya'll take it, just know that Jesus is watching you, and ye will be judged on that day! Ya'll know we need to be kind to our brothers, ya'll hear?". There was the guy traveling with his two young daughters who pulled out a laptop and proceeded to watch violent action movies. And let us not forget the charming fellow who assaulted the first bus driver because we were half and hour late getting to our destination. (In one small act of justice, the universe saw fit that this recalcitrant young hoodlum be hauled away by two massive security guards for his misdeeds. I hope they beat him severely for attacking that old guy.) Not that he didn't have reason to complain, mind you. The first bus driver, while a kindly older gentleman, didn't have any business driving a bus. He wasn't comfortable driving a manual transmission, and due to the fact that he had broken the emergency hatch in the top of the bus earlier, we had to deal with pouring rain throughout half of the passenger compartment for three-quarters of the trip. (Another passenger and myself eventually just took matters into our own hands, and used my pocketknives to cut ropes off of the luggage holding racks to tie the door down.)
And then there was the seats. We might as well have been sitting on milk crates. In fact, they might have been an
improvement Though once your butt goes numb, it becomes easier to bear.
Anyways, needless to say, we're glad to be home. And if I hear
one more person tell me "You'll look back on this in a few years and laugh!" they will have earned themselves a swift kick administered somewhere soft.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Exit, stage left.Sparks
