I woke up knowing it wouldn’t be a good day. Today I was getting the MEGA BUS. I have an issue with the name. Just call it the bus. There’s nothing Mega about. Unless the next part is Mega soul destroying.
I get on the bus, very apprehensive. After a short while my phone battery runs out, I now have no choice but to to try and avoid the man with gold teeth and a medallion nestled into his chest hair calling me ‘baby girl’. I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. You greasy, slimy creep. I don’t say this, I’m a people pleaser so I just smiled and said ‘Buses ey?”.
That’s another tip when trying to avoid conversation with nutters, act as if you have no personality. It works, trust me.
It all started when I accidentally wore double denim. This took me back to my teenage years. I once wore quadruple denim to a night club. A truly horrifying image. Especially when you add hair straightened to within an inch of its life and a blue WKD clutched between badly fake tanned hands. If that image isn’t scary enough the next one will finish you off…
Within an hour the toilets are already ‘OUT OF USE’. A young woman is desperate to go and the driver says we can’t stop until Birmingham. This is all too much for her and she goes to the back of the bus, squats and covers herself with a jacket. I cant believe I’m typing this…she is pooing into a paper cup.
She then just sat back in her seat and held onto the steaming cup. I looked around trying to make eye contact with someone who would exchange a glance of ‘what the hell?!” I keep looking, searching desperately. No one meets anybody’s eyes. I’ve never felt lonelier. Its moments like these I feel like it really is just me. Why does no one else think this is bonkers? There’s a lady, I use the term loosely, holding a steaming cup of her own shit. Not that it being someone else would make it better. Come to think of it, nothing would make this better. The only would be me being a bit more fancy and just getting the train, which I normally do but I was trying to be sensible so I had more money for cocktails. Cocktails that I definitely need after this ordeal. We’re not even in Birmingham yet and the smell of a strangers shit is burying itself into my nostrils.
There’s no air-con and a bonkers old man wearing a Friends t-shirt keeps pushing the coach windows shut because the draught is hurting his neck. I’ll give him a sore neck in a minute. The Friends t-shirt is a lie, he clearly has none, not with an attitude like that. I instantly regret smiling at him when I got on the coach. I’m pleased I didn’t offer him any of my grapes, that I ate before we even left Manchester. All I have to keep me entertained is a sorry looking apple. The apple’s sorry and I’m sorry. Why didn’t I just get the train? The Virgin speedy train, in London in just 2 hours. Air -con, clean seats and a functioning toilet. That train is a 5 star in the Maldives with an underpaid butler in comparison to this 1 star, shit-scented, Mega Bus to hell. I might sound spoilt and entitled but I don’t think fully grown adults should be shitting into cups, not in public anyway….and if they do, they should at the very least have the grace to look embarrassed.
To be fair to her, maybe she’s had a really bad week, or a bad vintage and just doesn’t care any more. I remember turning 30 during a shift at a Christmas grotto. Whilst dressed as an elf, I ate an entire Paw Patrol advent calendar. A low point. Maybe this is her low point. Something awful must have happened to her because that is a defeated woman!
I finally jumped off the bus in London – dazed, damaged, in need of a gin and to be held. I spent the weekend re-telling the story to friends and friends of friends. I’ve had to tell so many people that I’m convinced it’ll eventually get back to the cup girl.
A thought that makes my blood run cold is that in a couple of days I’ll be getting back on the Mega Bus to come home again. I mean, I could get the train but where are the anecdotes in that?!
Maybe we should all be pooing in cups, she looked strangely liberated. Or perhaps use it as a bench mark for a personal crisis, for example- work was depressing this week but at least I didn’t poo in a cup. A positive spin on a shitty situation.
Lady Ilaria 