I hope they serve beer on Mega Bus.

I do not trust Sarah Palin's eyebrows. But I guess that's sort of a non-issue.

I'm seriously considering reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell out of pure curiosity. I'm positive I will hate it. I'm sure I will ultimately be worse off as a person for having read it, but the time I've spent mulling over the mere possibility of reading is infinitely greater than the time it would take to find the corner of Borders least littered with empty Frappucino cups and subscription cards and just. read. it. Maybe not even cover to cover. My younger brother, who fits squarely into Tucker Max's intended demographic, couldn't even give it two complete thumbs up. That either says a lot for the caliber of my family's general intellect or not much for the book. I'd like to think it's a combination of the two.

(Note: I just took a ten-minute hiatus from writing to peruse Tucker's Flickr account. But I was making fun the entire time! In my head!)

I decided to dip my toes into the lukewarm pond of discount domestic travel last night and take Mega Bus home for the first time ever. My bus was supposed to leave Chicago's Union Station at 11:55 and reach St. Louis's Union Station at 5:25 this morning. However, it was an hour late, so I ended up spending the end of my Friday night and the beginning of my Saturday morning talking to an...

(Gross. I can't stop, and these pictures aren't even interesting.)

...older woman about her grandchildren and watching a drunk couple stop kissing and stumbling long enough for the guy to board his bus to Toledo. Due to recent events (aherm), I was a little nervous about taking a bus. At night. Next to strangers who may or may not feel it necessary to harm me or at least just stare a lot. However, once the bus started moving, and I began to doze, I realized it was the people around me who were in danger... at least in danger of being made to feel uncomfortable. I've been having nightmares lately, and it's not unusual for me to wake up saying something nonsensical (confusing) or crying (awkward). I would sleep in five-minute increments and then spend the next half hour trying to discern whether or not I'd done anything crazy in my sleep.

The guy sitting next to me looks fairly restful and unfazed. Check.
The woman in front of me is still scraping the cheese off of her Egg McMuffin wrapper. Check.
I'm not drenched in sweat or covered in cryptic messages written in Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers. Check.
We're good to go.

By the time we rolled into St. Louis this morning, just half an hour over our original ETA, I hadn't made any lasting friendships on the Mega Bus, but I hadn't burned any bridges either. And for a $16 ticket and a chance to get home, that's the most one can hope for.