What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you on a Greyhound bus?

[MonkeyFunk]

Once, the woman in front of me put her hands up behind her head - hanging over into "my" space. And kept 'em there for like two hours. It was just a slight annoyance at first, but it just built and built and it was really driving me crazy, but I felt like a jerk asking her not to do that. So I put up with it.

And once this guy farted.

[Left Is Write]

1. Not to me, but to my daughter -

She got lice on a Greyhound bus.

[LeftyMom]

2. My trip was long, slow, and boring.

Some friends took a cross-country trip out here and their bus was raided by the DEA, then later on the same trip, an old man had a heart attack and died in his seat. But they complained most about people hassling them for cigs at the bus station.

[Aristus]

3. I used the bathroom...

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us...

[mcctatas]

11. I had to sit next to the bathroom....

I can still recall that cloyingly sweet antiseptic aroma :puke:

[Monk06]

4. Buying the ticket. After that it's all downhill.

[sakabatou]

5. Just having to fucking wait for it

[Heidi]

6. Where to even start...

I once rode a Greyhound bus from Gainesville, Fla., to Key West.
- Clandestine smoking of a cigarette with a cute Cuban guy in the back of the bus;
- Stayed up all night talking with a grad student about Kerouac, Ginsberg and tribal drumming (these topics seemed deeply connected at the time)
- Played charades with a group of German, Japanese and South American students

ETA: these aren't "worst," just "odd."

[Richard Steele]

7. The nice young lass I had spent 12 hours "chatting up" got off the bus before I "sealed the deal".

That's the WORST thing that ever happened to me on a GreyHound bus.

Once, on a short 3hour Baltimore-Ocean City trip back in 1997, it looked like something worse
might have been brewing, but I can't say for sure, because I was asleep for most of it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. I sat down and started studying a music score...

and this totally drunken dude sat next to me and explained that he was also a musician. "Oh really? What do you play?" I asked.
"Drums," said he, and proceeded to point to every friggin note in the score and say "That's a beat, an' that's a beat, an' that's a beat, an' that's a beat..." the whole friggin way from Baltimore to College Park...and it wasn't the express bus.

[MonkeyFunk]

10. ooh! You're one of THOSE people

I used to live near Stanford university and would occasionally see people "studying" music scores. It always struck me as so strange.

Do you "hear" it in your head? Do you imagine playing it on whatever your instrument is?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

17. Yes to both questions...

You play better when you visualize the music without your instrument. You can think through passages that give you difficulty. And sometimes analyzing the harmonic structure of a piece gives you a better understanding of how to interpret it.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Oh, I know the news story that prompted your thread.

I don't know of one which creeped me out more, it is so horrible and bizarre.:scared:

But I've never had a bad experience on a Greyhound bus. I actually met some very nice people, though it's been awhile, a college student who wanted to keep in touch with me and another girl who told me her life story.:shrug:

I was once refused return to a bus at a rest stop on my way to NYC when I was about 14, because the driver had taken my whole round-trip ticket, but I stopped the bus, so people weren't happy with me, but I managed to persevere... :-)

[Rhythm]

12. Riding during the mechanic's strike in the early 1990's was harrowing

Not so much where i got on in NC, but when I made my connection in Baltimore, the picketers were in a riotous frenzy.

The driver who got on there looked like Pat Tillman, complete with a black beret and a sidearm, and announced over the intercom, "I'll be your driver from here to Port Authority Terminal in NYCity. You have nothing to fear. To keep you all safe, I'll run THEM over if i have to."

He then got behind the wheel, backed up, and headed for the chain-link gate. The guards there barely got it open before he went through, and i remember several angry picketers hitting the bus with bats and trying to break the windows. Arriving in NYC was a picnic by comparison. The picketers outside were peaceful and orderly.

~*~*~*~*~

This was the ONLY bad experience i have ever had with interstate bus service, and i've probably logged almost 20k miles in my life as a Greyhound passenger.

That incident in Canada, while appallingly scary, is so anomalous that it just boggles my mind.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

13. The driver began nodding off.

It was at the Indiana/Illinois border, about 4am.

There's me, sitting in row 2 watching it all. I didn't sleep until Wisconsin. :scared:

[datasuspect]

14. hauling ass on the way to topeka from denver

with two tornadoes touching down in the field next to us.

the driver put the hammer down while debris and wind rocked the bus.

[moriah]

15. Trying to hobble on and off of it on crutches.

I had to make the trip home when I had a very badly sprained ankle.

Was given a front seat, everyone was very nice to me.

Only time I ever rode a Greyhound. It was also a short trip, would have been a 3 hour car ride.

I usually either stay home, drive, or luck into cheap plane tickets. (It's 99 roundtrip from Kansas City to Nashville!)

[peacefreak]

16. Not worst, but strangest...

On the outskirts of NYC the bus driver pulled the bus over to the breakdown lane & stopped. He walked to the back of the bus & used the bathroom. Started the bus back up & proceeded to Port Authority--probably a couple of miles down the road. Couldn't wait to whizz a couple minutes.

[Orrex]

18. Saw a guy freak out once

Near the end of my 44-hour journey from Austin, TX to Allentown, PA back in 1992, I chanced to find myself wedged between the window and a man named John who was large enough to occupy the whole double-seat all by himself. Not to disparage the overweight--I'm simply stating a fact of physical dimensions. He was a car salesman from NJ and was returning home after delivering a car to his daughter in Ohio somewhere. We were sitting about 3/4 of the way to the rear of the bus, on the right side.

About ten minutes out of Harrisburg, a guy at about the bus' midpoint struggled to his feet and wobbled down the aisle to speak with the driver. Even from behind, he seemed disoriented, and suddenly the driver barked "This bus is going to Allentown. Allentown!"

So the guy wandered about halfway back to his original seat and flopped into a different unoccupied one. People near me speculated that he might be illiterate, or impaired, or not a native speaker of English and thus unable to read a schedule or the like...

Twenty minutes later he let loose this high-pitched gurgling sound, and he reached across the aisle, grabbed the passenger seated there, and rasped "Kill me! Please kill me!" Then he sprang to his feet and started flailing about, shrieking and sobbing. Everyone immediately freaked out, not least the driver. By this time we were on some interstate or other major route, I believe, with no exit very nearby.

This was long before 9/11, of course, but pretty much everyone assumed that the guy was a crazed murderer itching to gun us all down. Alternatively, we expected an alien larva to burst from his chest.

No one had cellphones back then, either.

Anyway, John leapt from his seat, charged down the aisle, and bear-hugged the guy; John was big enough to restrain him, force him back into a seat, and attempt to calm him down. John then returned to the seat beside me, and we all tried to relax a little.

Meanwhile, we passed a State Police Barracks.

Twenty minutes later the guy jumped up once more, howling and wailing and swinging wildly. John again grabbed him, and this time the driver was able to make it to an exit and find a gas station. "No cops! No cops!" the guy kept begging.

John wrestled him out of the bus and held him immobile in the parking lot while the driver ran into the gas station to call for an ambulance and the police. Fully 45 minutes later the ambulance arrived, and ten minutes after that a State Trooper showed up. They strapped the guy to a gurney and whisked him away to god knows where.

Eventually we determined that he was in heroin withdrawal and basically fucked out of his head. I have to say that John's performance was pretty darned impressive, and he's welcome to crowd me out of a double-wide Greyhound seat any time he wants to.

I learned two things in all of this:

1. Greyhound buses at the time didn't have radios. That's right--a downtown Loop bus maintains radio contact with home base, but a Greyhound travels the country with no way of reporting in until it reaches the next station. This may have changed in the 15 years since then, though.

2. Heroin is bad, but nicotine is worse. I judge this from the fact that, as soon as the heroin-freaked guy was dragged from the bus, a dozen smokers filed out behind him to satisfy their nic-fits.


Go Greyhound, And Leave The High-Speed Forcible Heroin Detox To Us.
"Three Brazilians died."

[old mark]

19. two experiences, same trip

Rode from California to Pennsylvania on a bus. Stopped at bus terminal in Salt Lake City, had the absolute worst hamburger of my life.

Later, picked up passengers who turned out to be about 12 outlaw bikers going east tp the funeral of a biker big shot.

Have not been on a long distance bus since, no plans to go again.

mark

[JTG of the PRB]

20. I took a Greyhound bus once... I will never, never, EVER do that again.

One-way trip from Denver to Las Vegas in December 2006 when there was a huge blizzard that shut down Denver International Airport. I had flown to Vegas alone, and I was stranded. My parents bought me a bus ticket because the earliest the airline could get me into Denver with my ticket was 10:00pm, Christmas Day. The bust ride as an 18-hour ordeal packed to capacity with miserable, grumpy, tired people.

Possibly the worst 18 hours of my life. Never again. x(

[Kali]

21. worst? riding home after wrecking my car on the way to the Grand Canyon

nothing particularly bad about the bus trip itself, just a bummer all around.

Best thing that ever happened was in the :hippie: 70's meeting some guy who told a great story about being the pot dealer and friends of the band Kansas (why was he riding the bus?) I didn't really believe him but he gave me about a 1/2 OZ of some kick-ass buds.:smoke:

[zanne]

22. The guy sitting next to me came on to me.

He thought it was funny when I said I wasn't interested and kept it up for the three hour ride. There were no empty seats on the bus.

[XOEnterprises]

23. Someone got in my purse and stole my bank info.

I don't know how he did it, as I had the purse strap in my hand and the purse was firmly between my feet, but he did it. I found out three days later when the bank sent me overdraw notices in the mail, and when I called, they said I had been in California taking out all the money in my account. I had to patiently explain to the guy that I had been in downtown Spokane, buying books that day.

I know the guy that did it, too-he was sitting right behind me, opposite aisle, and tried to sell me pot, Valium and sleeping pills. I also saw him pull out this HUGE knife and threaten to cut up a transgendered man in the bus station before we left.

[datasuspect]

24. got a toothy blow job in the shitter

[LostInAnomie]

36. Sounds like a classy lady.

It wouldn't have been necessary to go to the shitter with most of my women.

[skooooo]

25. The worst time in my life was a 24 hour bus ride to NYC.

Started out I was sitting next to a BIG guy who didn't speak English, fell asleep and started leaning over on me. I should have told the bus driver, but I was a teenager, and didn't know how to handle things very well. When the bus stopped for a break, I changed seats, taking some other guy's seat until he got back on and asked what was going on. I tried to bluff my way through, thinking he could just sit somewhere else. Then he asked WHY I had left my old seat. I didnt want to explain the situation, so I got up and started heading toward the back.

Finally almost to the very end of the bus, there was an empty seat, so I sat down. After about 14 minutes, I realized I had taken a young girls seat who had temporarily been sitting in her mother's lap. The mother didn't say anything to me, so I stayed there the remainder of the trip feeling stupid and guilty....well more like an ass really.

[edbermac]

26. Some idiot woman next to me tells her whole life story to another passenger.

x(

[Breeze54]

31. But, but they asked me !1!11!

::rofl:

[Gormy Cuss]

27. Riding down the Maine turnpike in whiteout conditions.

That was much scarier than the time there was a guy showing off his pistol and talking about how nobody better mess with him.

[MrScorpio]

28. Some guy tried to grope me

He lost all interest when I told him that I didn't swing that way

[mulsh]

29. Santa Cruz-Oakland,Ca, mid-80's a drunk military guy

sits down next to me at San Jose, two middle age black ladies in the seat in front of us. Guy, reeking of Jack Daniels, asks me where I'm going. "Oakland" i say. "Nothing in Oakland but niggers n queers" he says. Lady in aisle seat in front of me looks at me and rolls her eyes I roll mine.I tell the guy I'm from Oakland. He spends the next 40 miles spilling Jack Daniels on me and complaining about Oakland in real vile racist terms, assures me "they don't have no queers er niggers in Idaho where I comes from". (tell that to my cousin and her partner in Boise) Nothing I say will shut this guy up. No other seats available. pure hell.
When we get into Oakland homeboy decides it would be funny if he gave one of the sisters who's bending over picking something up a nice wedgie. She wheels around and starts slapping the crap out of the guy. telling him. " I told you to knock that shit off at the bus station" as I got up to leave I managed to step on his stomach, with all my weight. I thanked the lady profusely. we shared a cab from the Greyhound station. at least there was a happy ending.

couple of years later on the same run I was stuck in back with a pack of 13 year old girls returning from the beach to Los Altos singing the wrong lyrics to Beatle songs. the line's "losing my hair" no " losing my head" at lest they were cute,funny, and not at all vile or racist.

[HEyHEY]

30. Does it have to be a Greyound? I was on a charter once....

Full of students going on a ski trip. We were allowed to drink on the bus. I decided to drink vodka because I didn't want to be peeing all night (As would happen if I drank beer). I decided to further ease my pyhsical effort by drinking that vodka through a straw. About an hour and a half into the trip I was fucking hammered and the bus was spinning. My buddy handed me a barf bag and I opened it and spewed... I didn't realize I actually HADN'T opened it and was throwing up all over my chest. I got up to go to the washroom, covered in my own vomit, and some guy points at me and says, "YES! This guy knows how to party!"

I woke up and my pants were missing and someone had changed my shirt. I was dubbed "Barf boy" by the others for the rest of the trip, but the name was said with affection.

[FloridaJudy]

32. Some nice but extremely boring guy

Kept me awake for hours describing in excruciating detail how he planned on rebuilding a used truck he'd just bought. He even brought out of dozens of snapshots of his "baby". I couldn't tell a camshaft from a brake cable to save my life, but I felt forced to be polite, since he'd cleared a seat for me - everybody else had stretched out on two and was sleeping.

The buses weren't that bad, but the bus stations were really creepy. I suggest nobody spend any time in the West Palm station at 5 am. Lots of trolling pimps and hookers, aggressive panhandlers and nodding junkies. Nothing bad happened to me there, but I think I ground most of the enamel off my back teeth worrying about what could have.

[mitchum]

33. self delete: wrong place

[mitchum]

34. self delete: mispost

[mitchum]

35. A few days ago I did not get to finish my meal...

most happy and glorious greetings to you from Canada

[carlyhippy]

double post, stupid mouse

[carlyhippy]

37. I have never ridden on a greyhound bus, but on a tourist bus once

the seat kinda smelled like urine, I sat on my towel, grossed out the whole time. The bus itself was clean, I guess I was the lucky person who got the seat that someone had an accident in a few days before, who knows. .....