Overthinking...under busing
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
And, of course, we overthought it.
You’ll recall that we were trying to figure how to get Judy back to Kansas in time for her Absolutely-Had-To-Be-There meeting. You’ll recall, too, that I had researched buses and thought they might be a valid alternative to flying.
But, we still managed to torment ourselves for days wondering whether we should take the bus, or the plane, or whatever. We went around it. And Around it. And AROUND it. Should we do X? Should we do Y? If we did Z would that be better? But what if...?
Hey. Give us a break. Consider who you’re dealing with here. A working journalist (Judy). A retired college professor (Martha). And a raging lunatic (me). That’s what we do. We overthink. If we didn’t do that, our heads would explode. It wouldn’t be pretty. Heck. It wouldn’t even be ugly. It would just be really icky. All the splatter, you see. And nobody wants that.
Anyway, it was finally Judy who flicked the circuit breaker (thank goodness). One morning, while we were in the middle of discussing it for the 37th time, she said, “Actually, I was looking forward to writing a column about taking the bus.”
So...at last...a decision. Whew.
About the photos: First a shot of Martha and Judy at the Eastside Bus Station (how little we knew what we were about to get into). Second, here’s a photo of the bus station from the outside. It isn’t great photo by any means, but it was the best I could manage at dawn when I was half asleep. And, finally, the woman outside. I wonder who she was talking to.
Oh, and here's a little video that I'm just sure you'll love. Okay. Maybe not. But, here it is anyway. Bell, you see. And hop, I add.
Next up was buying the tickets. This turned out to be easy. Flixbus-qua-Grayhound has an easy-to-use webpage. We purchased three tickets for early in the morning of June 14, a Saturday. And when I say early, I mean EARLY. The bus itself was due to leave the Austin bus station at seven something. Which meant we had to be there two hours early. Which meant that we had to get up and at ‘em by no later than 5 am.
That, in turn, meant that the best thing for us to do was get a hotel room in Austin, and then Uber from there to the bus station. We made reservations, drove down to the kids’ house on Friday, had dinner, and then we left our car at their place and David gave us a ride downtown.
On Saturday morning, we rose as a merry body at the crack of dawn (argh!), got dressed, and had breakfast.
Actually, this was more of a miracle than you might think. Judy is, well, not exactly an early riser. Martha was absolutely certain we were going to have the devil’s own time getting her woken up. But, she fooled us, and darned if she wasn’t up and at ‘em before dawn. I like, however, to think, that I helped this process along with my early morning wit and humor. For instance, when I went to get a luggage cart and returned with it, Martha said, “Here’s the bellhop.”
To which I responded with my trademark, knee-slapping, oh-so-funny wittiness by saying, “And here’s my impression of bellhop.” I then popped up on my toes. “Hop,” I said. Then, I said, “Ding.” Then, “Hop.” Then “Ding.” Get it? Bellhop. Bell. Hop. Ha Ha ha.
They didn’t laugh either.
Anyway, the Uber came and we were off to Austin’s bus station. Which was when we got our first hint that things might not go entirely to plan. The bus stop itself was actually very nice. It was smaller than I thought it would be -- basically it was just a single, medium-sized room in domed building--but it was new and had comfortable benches on which to wait.
The kicker was the setting. We were in a little parklike-area with lots of seats and concrete walkways--ALL of which were occupied by homeless people. Or, I guess the current term is “the unhoused.” Whatever you want to call them, they were everywhere--sleeping under tarps and blankets on the park benches, sleeping hidden in the bushes, sleeping on the concrete. One woman was seated outside one of the glass doors of the Station, her back against the wall, smoking cigarette after cigarette, having a long and angry conversation with someone no one else could see.
We sort of picked our way between them. Then, inside, we selected seats on the benches, and got comfortable. I checked in with the pleasant woman who was the attendant. Yes, everything was fine. The bus would arrive at *that* door over there. Super.
We sat down to wait.
And then...and then...I got a text from Flixbus. Our bus was delayed. Very delayed. By at least an hour and a half. At least.(*)
Uh...er...yikes.
And thus began the Great Winfield Disaster...long to be remembered in song and story, and, in time, becoming the stuff of legend. A rather nasty legend. But a legend.
More to come.
Footnote:
*The reason for the delay was never clear. We got two stories. One was the bus had a mechanical problem. The other was that it was on the bridge between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso and had been hit by an ICE raid. Which was true? I just can’t say.
***
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