That’s the Burger King Flavor!

Last updated on October 23, 2018

On April 15th, 2009 and I stepped on a bus to travel from Florida, U.S.A, to Alberta, Canada. It would take me until April 18th to reach my destination. While on the bus, I did my best to keep sporadic notes about my experiences and trip.  Come with me on this long journey of smelly people crammed into tiny seats, share my pain.

April 15th, 6:30 pm. 3 hours on bus.

Sitting in thin, cramped uncomfortable greyhound bus seats, the Melbourne Florida international airport already seemed like a distant memory with it’s garish green palm tree and blooming red flow carpet, white walls and skylights.

It was my first bus, and although it wasn’t yet crowded I had already picked up a few interesting characters which boarded with me three hours ago at Melbourne.

The first noticeable fellow bus traveller was a young man who I immediately deemed “Fifteen cent.” Fifteen cent was a pasty pale, golden blonde haired southern white boy who I firmly believe thought he was terribly gangsta. He showed up at the airport wearing a black t-shirt that fell to the tops of his knees, covering his pants which were belted somewhere around his thighs. On this shirt, cheerily in neon colors of sunshine yellow, screaming pink and baby blue were patterns in the shape of brass knuckles. Stylin‘.

He wore his hat sideways and had a lovely pencil thin neck-beard. His moustache was also pencil thin and looked like it was sketched on his upper lip with a supremely fine calligraphy pen.

Fifteen cent started talking outside the Melbourne airport and had not stopped the entire time while on the bus. He chatted with a young woman who had blonde hair fried from the bleach used to turn it platinum while her roots of her greasy black hair crouched tell-tale at the top of her head. Fifteen cent often started his conversations, loudly –so the entire bus could hear–with such world-shattering phrases as, “I was working with the crew that built that,” pointing at what seemed to be everything as we drove by it,  and, “One time, when I was so mother fuckin’ high.” According to Fifteen cent, he built half of Florida and did so while being higher than a kite. (I don’t know about you, but I think from now on I’ll be eyeballing up several of the structures around where I live suspiciously for years to come. )

The girl he spoke to and hung around ( for I suspect, the free cigarettes she kept giving him) had her own quirks. She kept getting cell-phones calls from what I assumed to be her ex, as for the first four calls she would open her cell phone to only yell into it: FUCK OFF, then hang up.  This was jarring to me at the time, because the impression I had of her was one of mousey-ness. She was small, a touch chubby wearing a white shirt decorated with little pink flowers as well as pink scroll work. I thought she looked more like the type to collect My Little Ponies instead of barking things like, “I don’t give a shit! I don’t fucking care anymore, you’ll be charged for aggravated assault and that’s fucking that, fucker! Don’t call me anymore!”

While I half paid attention to their conversation which was inane and strewn with profanities that made me sound like a good christian church going girl in comparison, I realized that I had no clue what-so-ever in how to adjust the paper thin, hard-as-a-frozen-nipple-bus seat in which I was sitting in. Whom ever had sat in it before me had left the seat in half recline and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where the dohickeymabob thingie to fix it, near the window seat, was. Instead of doing something logical, like ask or move over the aisle seat where I could easily find the handle to adjust the seat–I decided to sit and suffer.

During these moments of feeling intensely idiotic and making a further note to investigate how this weird scorcery that is my greyhound bus seat, I hear Fifteen Cent exclaim, “That’s the mother fuckin’ Burger King Flavor!”

I remember sliding further down in my seat and putting my head into right hand.

This was only the first day of a four-day long bus trip. I knew at that moment of Fifteen Cent’s brilliant exclamation that this was going to be the longest ride of my life. 

I had three more days to go!

This entry is part one of several entries documenting my trip to Alberta via greyhound bus. Like what you’ve read so far? Feel free to hit the subscribe button here at 2phatgeeks to get entries updated via your favorite feed reader, or if you’re from live journal, feel free to add me as a friend!