Suzy Says

Part I

Still more public transit for poor (in every sense) Suzy. This was the first time I had ever taken a Greyhound bus anywhere. Buses in my opinion are not good, but the great Blackalicious adventure was worth it all.

Megan and I got to the frightening bus station with five minutes to spare before catching the bus to Sacramento. We ran down the hallway toward the ticket counter to the visible amusement of the clerk. Whether it was the panic on our faces, or just our faces, I don’t know, but she thought we were pretty damn funny.

Clutching our tickets with our misspelled names on them, we went to the door behind which there should have been a Blackalicious-bound bus, but no. In front of the door was a geeky guy who immediately started a one-sided conversation with us, during the course of which it was revealed that he was a poetry-spouting Jesus freak, which is the very worst kind. Oddly, what annoyed my sister and me the most was that he kept saying he had written a haiku of 22 words (and then reciting it). A haiku, any haiku, consists of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, not 22 words.

However, the bus was at least 22 minutes late. What with Poetry Guy and the fact that we had to buy our tickets to the show at the door (all advance tickets being sold out), we were approaching freak out point by the time the bus arrived. We made sure that we sat far, far away from Poetry Guy, preferring the company of the far less obnoxious bathroom.

Traffic was very bad, and the bus was already late, so we arrived in the Governator’s town almost half an hour after tickets had gone on sale. We were encouraged by the sight of a dozen cabs lined up outside the bus station, apparently willing and waiting to take us to the club. But most of the cabs were driver-free, and the first one in line, which actually did have a driver, wanted us to wait while he got a jump start.

This idea did not go over well with two girls whose only thought at this point was that we would have endured all of the above only to find the show was sold out. We finally found a cab which was equipped with both a driver and a working motor, and off we went. Less than half a block into the ride, discovered that cab driver was also a Jesus freak and not shy about it. At least he didn’t recite poetry and may have known what a haiku was, though the subject mercifully didn’t come up.

I’m all Jesused out and it isn’t even his birthday yet.