SHUT UP LIVER! MY TONGUE THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA!

-At the Greyhound station, whilst trying to catch up on far too long's worth of reading, I kept hearing the word Oprah repeatedly coming from the television. I turned around to look, assuming Oprah would only get this much attention if she say, formed a paramilitary group out of her followers, or, for instance, had her book club read The Satanic Verses. Unfortunately, real life tends to be a pale reflection of the healthy imagination, and the story was that her show was ending. More specifically, they were analyzing and debating what her last show was going to be like. I, and forgive me if it has already come on, like to think it will end just as it lived, by spending forty minutes on the suffering of child prostitutes worldwide and the last fifteen giving away worthless luxury goods to a room full of yuppies.

-The bus I eventually got on started cold. Colder than a glacier's heart, colder than a polar bear's urine, colder than well refrigerated fingertips of despair. As the ride went on, it got warmer, which naturally put me in a bit of a better mood. I then realized the source of the heat. It was body heat. I was Greyhound body heat. It was the humid, evaporating sweat of the type of filthy, half-evolved humanoid beings (myself included) that ride the Greyhound. I, perhaps for the first time in months, feel concerned about my health.

- One of the neat facts I read while distracting myself from the fact that I was being steamed alive by my fellow humans was that the book of mormon (intentionally uncapitalized) contains the phrase "and so it came to pass" 2000 times. Now, while this was a very blatant attempt by Joseph Smith to stall while verbally defecating a laughable attempt at a religious text, I feel the phrase still has an important use. The words "and so it came to pass" are key words in just about every drinking story I've ever told and likely ever will.

- Greyhound seats are obviously designed for dinosaurs, as no human has ever been comfortable sitting upright with their neck jutted forward by a hard metal plate only a masochist of the highest order could call a cushion.

One possible fictional exception

- To allow you to understand how hungover I am right now, writing that caption involved me debating between the words "exception", "exemption", "exhibition", "example" and "exemple". At least one of those is not even a word, will investigate when I can no longer take my pulse by listening to my brain scream.

- Someone's tag on the bus was "GLA$$ BITCH". Now, even the first part of that has me curious. I imagine the most likely case is that the person is involved in either the manufacture, distribution, or consumption of crystal meth. But let's explore other options, shall we?
      -The tagger is in fact translucent and is raising awareness for individuals with the same condition.
      -Similar to the above, but is instead raising awareness for his supervillainesque plan to melt New York City with a gigantic magnifying glass.
      -The person was about to tag something that made sense, but suddenly had a severe stroke and the ensuing word salad wound up as their only memorial on our mortal coil.

That or they were just high off their fucking ass. But it's nice to dream.

- We stop at a rest stop about every fifty minutes, I suspect my driver is a cocaine addict. I realize this is how my itinerary was planned by the computers down at Greyhound. I get angry at every computer from abacus to iPad.

- When I overcome the filth and disgust of my surroundings, I get hungry. The bus stops at an Arby's. This is the bad luck equivalent of finding a stack of face down pennies on a broken mirror. I eat the sandwich with the most bacon in it's name, I wonder why anyone would wrap bacon in bullshit, and soon after, where I can find a bathroom and/or a surgeon.

- Someone finally gets the gall to ask me to move my bag so they can sit down. It's an old guy with a smoker's cough as intense as his mustache who appears to be as nonplussed about this whole experience as I am. He leaves the small talk to the small people. I figure this is among the best potential greyhound neighbors and accept my fate.

- The man leaves the bus at the next stop, presumably to hunt down the people who killed his family.

And I wish him all the luck in the world.

- He is replaced by a little kid. FUCK.

- The little kid has a Speak and Spell. FUCK FUCK FUCK

- Just breathe easy, he has to get tired of it sometime.

- WHAT KIND OF MIRACLE BATTERY DOES THIS BULLSHIT RUN ON AND HOW DOES AN EIGHT YEAR OLD FUCK UP SPELLING "COW"? FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFFFFFFUUUU-

- He's gone. My fists unclench. My heart slows. My eyes stop ejaculating pints of blood. I am at peace.

- I search every rest stop for a bar or liquor store within a mile and a half on my Droid. There are never any results. This is both statistically impossible and fucking terrible.

- The Orlando bus station, in stark contrast to the low key Miami one, resembles a sort of Anglicized North Korea, retaining the constant, excessive police presence, but losing every hint of natural beauty.

- My next Greyhound neighbor was nobody. Nobody keeps me amazing company and I sleep soundly for a long while.

- I feel the world has enough sing-alongs, but not nearly enough sin-alongs. This may one of our biggest cultural issues as a nation, and as a planet.

- The driver insists on avoiding I-75 for the last stretch of the trip and instead take us down every last dark, Deliverance-esque road he, and apparently only he, can find.

- I consider yelling "THIS AIN'T NO MYSTERY MACHINE MOTHERFUCKER!".

- I realize that would involve me having to walk down said roads. I bury that thought deep down.

- Frank Sinatra's lyric "You're nobody til' somebody looooves you, you're noooobody til' soooomebody caaaaareees" happens to be pretty similar to my stances on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

You sly dog, you.

- After clarifying to someone that I meant "I get around" like The Beach Boys do and not like say, chlamydia does, I make a stunning revelation. They actually intended that song to be about their virulent sexual promiscuity. Said promiscuity would leave Brian Wilson with a terrible case of syphilis  that would inspire the beauty and insanity that was Pet Sounds. Take that moral guardians.

- My next career move is to run for city commissioner in Gainesville on the platform that we ban bestiality. Yes, even between animals. Have you seen dog dicks? GROSS.

- My thanks go out to El Indio's carnitas burritos, Midnight Oil at the Palomino and the hospitality of friends for keeping me kicking these past few days. It's comfortable that even in the rising muck, Gainesville still has its gems.

- Lastly, someone I'm growing fond of demanded this next article include kittens. Now, in order to maintain a few scraps of dignity, I'm compromising. Here is a single, almost adorable kitten.

He will save us all.

Ok, one more. 

I have gone so soft.