After college, my friends and I might as well have crawled into a cannon that shot us out at varied trajectories and scattered us across the country from Minnesota all the way to east Michigan. Admittedly, many of us didn’t make it out of the Midwest, but it isn’t called flyover country for nothing – the Midwest is a formidable stretch of countryside to traverse, especially if you don’t have a reliable car. Like many people in my age bracket, I’m broke, I place almost no value on my time and health, and I miss my friends, so the allure of the long-distance overnight coach bus as an alternative to air travel is strong. I’ve traveled the inverted parabola from Minneapolis to Madison to Chicago to Ann Arbor (and all permutations therein) on the night bus so many times that I’ve become something of an expert.
The night bus can be a beautiful thing. I’ve cried, been reborn, eaten things no one would believe, and seen things I can’t explain while trundling down I-94 at three in the morning. I’ve listened to the soundtrack to Annie Get Your Gun while watching the sun rise over the Hormel Chili silo in Beloit, a coalescence of experiences that brings about something akin to ego death. My best friend received a marriage proposal from her seatmate early one morning in Chicagoland, which may seem like an odd move on his part, but is really more or less de rigueur for the particular brand of delirium everyone sinks into over the course of the journey. That’s just the way of the night bus – bizarre experiences are birthed and nurtured under the unearthly green light of discount travel, and then, like a tropical houseplant suddenly exposed to a Midwestern winter, these experiences wither away and fade to wisps as daylight arrives.
Looking back on my first night bus experience, I remember feeling terrified, mainly because one of my fellow travelers had flown into a rage, punched a policeman in the head, and been hauled away in handcuffs all before the bus left the terminal. I never fully understood what triggered his anger, though in-bus chatter speculated that he forgot to smoke that joint before boarding. I vaguely felt like I too could be arrested at any moment and I didn’t sleep at all, arriving in St. Paul shattered, manic and unable to interpret the public transit system.
To prevent this from happening to anyone else, I have since perfected a routine that is nearly foolproof and guarantees you will have a pleasant journey with as few uncomfortable human interactions as you desire. You require only five ingredients, which I present here with comment:
1. SCARF
Will it be a FireBus or an IceBus? There’s no way to know ahead of time, but you can be sure that the thermostat will never be calibrated with human survival in mind. Hot or cold, dryness is a constant, so you’ll need something to wrap around your face. Use a lightweight scarf to create a greenhouse powered by your own hot, humid breath that will protect your mucus membranes from any harsh sirocco-like internal winds of the night bus. A scarf will also block the overhead lights, which are often impossible to turn off, while hiding your beauty from the dreaded Trans-Aisle Bus Leer. It is absolutely the most crucial item in your armory.
2. PARKA
If you live in Minnesota, like me, you’ll have one of these with you anyway. Just tent your parka over your seat back and crawl inside like a hibernating bat. If it’s the summer you can gamble without one, but unless you’re willing to unpack your backpack and drape individual socks and underwear over your exposed body parts, I don’t recommend it.
3. HEADPHONES
These are mainly for show; a music-playing device is a nice bonus.
4. WATER BOTTLE
See #1 – maintaining liquid homeostasis is important just so your body doesn’t become an old cicada husk that the bus driver has to scrape off the seat with a credit card, but don’t go crazy. Ideally you want your body’s metabolism to shut down for the next six to twelve hours.
5. DRUGS (optional)
Your night bus experience will be roughly 900 times more pleasant if you can get ahold of some sort of sleepy-time medicine. I’m pretty cavalier about mild abuse of drugstore antihistamines, so I usually roll with the side effects of Benadryl, but if you’re uncomfortable with this it’s not required. I did once score a Valium from someone’s mom before a ride and it was HEAVENLY, but again, not strictly necessary.
Stay POSITIVE, yet WARY.
The first thing to remember is that despite my oddly violent initiation into the world of the night bus, 95% of your fellow travelers are regular people who, like you, just want to get through the evening. Sure, they’ve made a few mistakes, and they’re definitely not great at planning (why would you think you could fly out of O’Hare at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday if your cousin’s graduation party in Michigan ends at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday?), but ultimately they mean no harm. That said, since you no doubt compulsively read lurid Wikipedia articles late at night, this story will not have escaped your notice, and you know that every long-distance bus journey may end with your decapitated head flying out of an open window into the dark Canadian night. This is the price you pay for saving on airfare, and you willingly accept it – nevertheless, you can still take steps to minimize your risk of cephalic defenestration.
Locate your SAFETY ZONE.
Ensure that you get in line early, as the first few minutes after boarding begins will be crucial to securing your SAFETY ZONE for the rest of the night. It doesn’t hurt to have your headphones in already – this could save you precious seconds when it counts. On double-decker buses, head directly for the top floor. The underbelly is home to restless children and all-night, high-stakes mahjong games, so stay away. Once you crest the top of stairs, you’ll need to do a quick tactical scan for two empty neighboring seats near the back of the bus (but AT LEAST four rows in front of the toilet, if applicable). That’s your El Dorado. Power back there and stake your claim.
Establish and secure the SAFETY ZONE.
Once you sit down, you’ll need to perform a minor act of deception by pretending to suffer from a sleep disorder that has caused you to become unconscious mere moments after alighting the bus. From the window seat, place your backpack on the aisle seat and drape your legs over it any which way – it doesn’t have to be comfortable, it just has to make other passengers hesitate before sitting next to you. Close your eyes. You may feel guilty for taking up two seats, but you just have to remember that nobody else in the world wants this as much as you do. As people continue boarding, you may sense someone hovering near your feet, contemplating where to sit – resist the urge to look at them, even through a squint. In the night bus world, eye contact is tantamount to an invitation, and they will try to sit with you.
Consume drugs, if applicable.
Once the bus is in motion, it is now safe to pop that Benny. Do NOT do this until you are well on your way – there’s nothing worse than nodding off on Nyquil while you wait on the curb for the relief driver from Gary to arrive.
Go to the bathroom.
The toilet will get ruined within the first hour. Pee NOW.
Engage scarf; enter parka.
Crawl so deep inside your own clothes that you can forget where you are. Whisper to yourself, “I am a baby mouse and this is my nest.” Is everyone else on the bus scared of you? Yes. From the outside you look like an abandoned pile of scrap fabrics behind Joanne’s. You are safe.
Go to sleep.
It’s easy, just relax. Sleep now.
Yes, you are almost about to sleep. You can shift your legs one more time, but after that you will definitely sleep. You do not have to pee again. You are feeling drowsy and comfortable. Anyway, dogs sleep like this all the time. That man will stop watching Call of Duty videos at full volume soon and then you will sleep. You’ve done everything right, you followed the routine, there’s no reason you shouldn’t easily fall asleep. No pressure, but if you don’t sleep tonight you’ll be all weird tomorrow and you won’t make a good first impression with your boyfriend’s parents. Shhh, relax. Your tailbone has receded into your spine, but it’s okay. Breathe and fall asleep. Wait, were you asleep just then? No, you weren’t, and you still aren’t.
Sleep. Oh my god. PLEASE SLEEP. WHY CAN’T – FUCK. JUST. SLEEEEEEEEEEEE-
Listen to music and look out the window for a few hours, even though you can’t see anything. What’s the fucking point.
On the bright side, soon you can eat a chicken sandwich.
If the bus ride is more than four hours long, the company is legally obligated to pause for about 30 minutes at a rest stop. This is your chance to explore the nightlife in such thrumming metropolises as Tomah, Wisconsin; Mauston, Wisconsin; or even Milwaukee (Wisconsin). At this point everyone will file off the bus and dutifully purchase a hot chicken sandwich from a fast-food restaurant, as if it is a normal part of their daily routine to purchase and eat a hot chicken sandwich at 4:oo a.m. I’m usually either too asleep or too angry that I’m not asleep to contemplate eating, but it’s a good idea to get off the bus just to take the edge off any simmering bedsores. By the end of the 30 minutes, you may almost feel normal again.
Get back on the bus.
Oh, hmm. No thanks.
They will leave without you – you have to get back on the bus.
That’s okay, you like it here. You can just stay in Tomah.
You’ll miss your friend’s improv show tomorrow.
You hate improv now. Anyway, you’ll never laugh again, so…pass.
That guy across the aisle will sell your socks on Craigslist if you don’t get back on the bus.
UGGGGGGGGHHHHH.
Once you’re back, try to rediscover that comfortable sleeping position from before.
You’ll never find it.
????????
Honestly, I don’t know what happens on the night bus between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. Once I momentarily awoke to a newborn baby propped up in the seat next to me. We nodded at each other, and when I woke up again it was gone. Was it mine? Who was the father? This is the time for you to watch several Korean dramas on someone’s iPad through the crack in the seats between you. Take a moment to cry about some stuff you’ve been meaning to cry about – you’ll find that your emotions are very close to the surface. You may lose track of your water bottle. Later you will see that a woman several rows ahead is using it to carefully reconstitute a dose of insulin. Let it go. In the depths of despair, remind yourself that everything you experience in this window of time will be forgotten almost instantly upon arriving at your destination, if that ever happens.
Get off the bus. You’re there.
What?
You made it. You’re free.
Oh my god. Oh my god, thank you. Thank you. The air. Even the AIR.
Perform aftercare.
Like a long-ignored Sim, you will find that once you emerge from the night bus fog all your basic needs are screaming for attention. Prioritize these and fulfill them quickly, yet methodically. Any Dunkin’ Donuts will have all the tools you need to accomplish this. Don’t forget to wash your armpits. At this point they’re just…God, they’re inhuman.
Enjoy your freedom, and vow to just suck it up and buy a plane ticket next time.
Many of you won’t, though. I’m no scientist, but I’m positive that the same hormones that make women forget the pain of childbirth exist in the blood of the newly freed night bus patron. Eventually you’ll start questioning your own experience — was it really that terrible? But wasn’t it worth it, in the end? Wouldn’t it be nice to see that new exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago next month…?
And the cycle repeats forever, or until you feel like you’re finally responsible enough to start renting cars.
Tags: advice, buses, lara brenner, nikki would like to apologize to everyone on that bus to new york, the night bus, travel
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having spent 11 hours on an overheated night bus last night while running a raging temperature, i feel this article in my flu-aching bones today
This is the most accurate guide to The Night Bus, the most consistent form of transit I have ever taken. This is perfect. Oh my god. The rage-non-eating. The baby mouse nest parka. The doubt you will ever arrive. The noise! The quantum noise of the Night Bus, the man playing loud videos even unto four AM, the dehydration.
Perfect. Thank you.
Yes, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.
I went to college in a small town that wasn’t connected by major transit to ANY other city, much less my hometown, and I always wished I could take a bus! Inter-city travel is the achilles heel of the Midwest. I shudder to think of all the near-tragedies I could have caused in my sleep deprived state, zoning out at 2am behind the wheel of my shitty Saturn.
In grad school I rode the Night Bus between Minneapolis and Chicago more times than I can count. It always seems so convenient (“I can sleep the whole time and be rested for a whole day of fun when I get to Chicago!”), but DO NOT BE FOOLED. You will not sleep. There comes a time on the Night Bus where it is so late that all you want to do is sleep, but sleep will not come. You must resign yourself to living your life on the Night Bus forever. Only then will you be allowed to disembark.
See also: Toronto to Montreal, Toronto to New York, Toronto to just about anywhere, you will not sleep, do not lie to yourself.
My special overnight hell was as follows:
7:00 PM – 11:30 PM: Ottawa – Toronto, with a stop near Flinton, Ontario, at a isolated place that apparently had live bears as backyard pets in the 1980s (I have been unable to find verification of this rumour)
11:30 PM – 1:30 AM: spend an hour in the Toronto coach terminal, unable to sleep, watching the pigeons fly in and out of the doors
1:30 AM – 6:00 AM: Toronto – Windsor, with a stop in London that feels like forever (better than the 7:00 AM – 1:00 PM Toronto – Windsor milk run which stops at every general store in every small town along the way)
6:30 AM — reach home, ready to start my day!
I will say that leaving Toronto to go north on the Ontario Northland is actually lovely compared to Greyhound — they have fast wifi, comfy seats, and they stop in Gravenhurst at a place with fresh-baked goods, armchairs, and excellent coffee.
I too have heard rumours of the live bears at the log cabin. I’ve been travelling that route since I was 8. Next time, go check out the pond round back – it is a good place for a breath
Oh, good! This rumour was not entirely made up by my parents— I think I’ll ask some locals for verification at some point.
I never go to the pond around back because it’s always so dark and cold!! But it does look pretty
I love the Gravenhurst train station and have forever, thank you for this moment of nostalgia.
It has just gotten better since its revamp — better food, better coffee, better seating, even a new patio!
It’s sad that Ontario Northland trains don’t run anymore, but at least this station hasn’t been shuttered…
WIndsor! <3
On a night bus ride from Lafayette, LA to Houston, TX, after a hurricane, I was broke and in pretty bad shape. An older man bought me a hamburger and french fries and two packs of cigarettes, gave them to me, and in a totally noncreepy way told me that I reminded him of his daughter, that I should eat more and to call my mom whenever I got where I was going to tell her I was safe.
To this day, it is still the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I cried about it the whole rest of the bus ride and I am crying about it now. Night buses – full of creeps and also giants of human empathy.
Yay, not-creepy kind older men!
I haven’t read yet, but just hopped down here to say I took the night bus from Omaha to Chicago and back two years ago for Lollapalooza and it was a hellish experience. I’ve never been so cold in my life. Or so tired! I decided after that trip that I will gladly pay several hundred dollars for a flight for the sake of my mental health. Some “bargains” just aren’t worth the suffering.
HAHAHA just got to the part about covering your exposed body parts with your socks and underwear! On the way back after Lolla, the AC was programmed to just below freezing, so I pulled out all my sweat- and mud-covered disgusting festival clothes and draped them over myself.
Oh, memories of grad school. When my college best friend and I were studying in states that would have been adjoining but for this inconvenient detail called Lake Michigan. The MegaVanGalderHound and I, we have tales to tell. This piece brought them all back nostalgically, which is something I would not have thought possible.
Midnight bus from New York City to Washington, DC. Normally I take the train cause I’m old enough and make enough money that the bus is not worth the savings to me but for some reason the last train was at 10pm instead of 11:30pm. I was seeing a play so there was no way to make a 10pm train. It was December and the bus pickup point was outside with no shelter. The bus was almost an hour late. Then the heater broke midway. Bless my fellow travelers, we voted by a wide margin to just keep going rather than wait 90 minutes at the rest area for a new bus to arrive. We were only about 2 hours from DC at that point so even the driver clearly wanted to just keep going. Instead of being home around 5am to get 4-5 hours of sleep before getting online to work from home at 10am I got home at almost 7am. Still got up and worked from home cause it was Friday so might as well power through. That evening, the norovirus hit.
The play I saw was the Alan Cummings one-man (almost) version of Macbeth. It was so absolutely fabulous I would go through the whole thing over again.
I totally agree.
“That evening, the norovirus hit.”
This tidily summarizes at least one leg of every long-distance bus, train or plane ride I have ever taken, but most especially the New York Night Bus.
Take a moment to cry about some stuff you’ve been meaning to cry about – you’ll find that your emotions are very close to the surface.
Like a long-ignored Sim, you will find that once you emerge from the night bus fog all your basic needs are screaming for attention.
YES
Oh yes, bless this! I spent all of my long breaks from college overseas traversing my Midwestern homeland (exactly this parabola and its vicinity) via bus, train, and – when lucky – car. That stop in Tomah, the perpetually hours-late Wolverine from Chicago to Detroit, the oddly charming South Shore train from Chicago to South Bend, and all the poor souls on my Milwaukee to Chicago Megabus continuing all the way to Memphis. This made me nostalgic in the weirdest and most visceral way (I can feel the horrible dry chill of the Megabus now). Thanks!
Tomah makes the VG stop in Beloit seem like a rollicking good time.
I loved this. I’m so glad you were able to turn these experiences into such a helpful guide. 🙂
This was a delight. Mostly I just came here to say: Lara Brenner, we share last names. Brenner is a strong and noble last name, wear it with pride, LB (from a fellow LB, also from Minneapolis).
Best / worst bus story: on an afternoon in November of 2009 I was taking the Murray’s bus from Sydney to Canberra. It was 39C in Sydney that day and there was an Extreme fire warning (the highest one!). The bush between Sydney and Canberra is, shall we say, notorious for bushfires.
While the bus had airconditioning, the walls and windows were very hot, and while we were passing by Lake George (not a lake at that time due to the drought), it swayed ominously in the wind. I attempted to go to the bathroom about an hour out from Canberra, and discovered that the bathroom was not airconditioned (!!!) and therefore about 50C. Did you know it is impossible to actually use the toilet if the toilet is located in a tiny metal box zooming down a highway and it is 50C inside? It is. I gave up and held it until Canberra, where it was a blissful 32C and much less humid. Then I fell into my best friend’s arms and demanded the bathroom, hydration, and food.
I’d still do it again, because the bus is cheaper than the train or the plane by a lot of money, and in good weather it is not quite as psychotic a choice. Also the planes are full of politicians and public servants, the only people who actually need to go to Canberra.
I remember that summer! That was the summer I moved to Canberra and the weather was AWFUL, but at least not Sydney humid.
(I am a public servant who takes the bus to Sydney for leisure trips because the fare is $24 vs $150 and airports are awful.)
Oh man, I was actually in Sydney in 2009! (I was studying abroad there that spring semester.) The flies! The heat!
This really brings back the days of overnight travel, when I used to think “Why waste a day travelling when you can just do it while you sleep!?”
Worse time was when the bus broke down and we were stranded in a field for hours. In the middle of the night. Until another bus came to rescue us.
You would think that the most surreal form of long-distance public transport would be the one that takes you 39,000 feet into the air. But no.
Before I was financially stable enough to purchase airfare, I made the trip between Charlottesville, VA and Cleveland, OH several times by Greyhound. Note: never do this. There was always a 4-hour layover in the DC terminal (which, as bus terminals go, is actually fairly nice), but the chairs have no cushioning, just that heavy, coated mesh.
I’m 5’9″, much of which is leg, and I have bad knees. 16 hours on a bus, noooooooooooooooo.
Is everyone else on the bus scared of you? Yes. From the outside you look like an abandoned pile of scrap fabrics behind Joanne’s. You are safe.
LOVE
When I was 15 my mum and I moved to the big city and for the next few years I would regularly spend 10 hours on the overnight bus to my home town to visit my dad. I clearly remember the way that time seems to have no meaning and you could create your own little personal universe in the dark. With a pillow, a discman, and a crocheted rug, I felt both invincible and invisible.
I remember I took my first ever birth control pill on that bus and I was terrified I would drop it and ruin my planned virginity losing. I remember climbing on that bus to see my dad for the first time since I had told him (via letter) that his brother had abused me, and I remember the awkard and heartbreaking 5am Dad conversation we had when I arrived. I remember sitting on the steps outside the bus stop the one time my dad has ever slept through an alarm, and just revelling in being outside, unafraid because that town still felt like home and I was meant to be there. I remember a lot of Living End cds. But most of all, I remember that peaceful private universe, the knowledge that you can’t go any faster, that you can’t do anything at all, except let your thoughts drift.
…I did not realise I had this many feelings about inter-city buses.
This is one of the funniest things ever posted on the Toast!! I hope you share more of your work here. I wanted to read your blog for more lols but what is it?
Brings back memories of Greyhound riding through the West but at the time of the Washington sniper. “Can passengers please store weapons under the bus” sounded pretty crazy to this English girl. I don’t eat chicken but I can still feel the fur of Little Debbies on my teeth.
Once in the days before easyjet, or at least in the days before I had the cash/concern for my own dignity to consider easyjet, I was on a long-distance bus in Europe (Antwerp to Paris, I think) and one of those emergency escape doors on top of the bus just popped off as we were cruising down the highway.
It was January and about -2 degrees, so the top deck of the bus was immediately filled with furious ice-cold wind.
We pulled over and the driver managed to retrieve the stray door from the middle of the highway, but it was broken, and would not stay, so some noble soul, I think a middle-aged North African man traveling with his children, stood in the aisle for the next two hours (!) holding the door in place until we reached our destination.
When we arrived I think everyone was too groggy to think about how to repay such an act of self-sacrifice, but once I recovered from my night bus induced haze I wished I could have at least bought that guy and his kids a nice meal.
I’ve never felt “the shudder of recognition” so strongly. Not even while reading the Hey Ladies posts.
I live on the east coast and went to school in Ohio and became intimately familiar with these bus rides. And it’s so horrifyingly true that I never remember how bad it is! Every time EVERY TIME I think “this can’t be that bad, I can sleep anywhere, it’ll be fine.”
MOST NOTABLE MOMENTS FROM MY COLLEGE DAYS:
-Getting very, very drunk at a happy hour just before taking an overnight Greyhound from Cleveland to Philadelphia. Stumbling onto the bus in high heels and a minidress. Blessedly managing to sleep for most of the trip, but my feet were 90% blisters by the time I got home.
-Winning two tickets to a special advance screening of a Doctor Who episode, with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan present for a Q&A. Taking two consecutive overnight Greyhounds (Cleveland – New York and back) so that I could get there and back without missing a day of work. The first one wasn’t bad. The one back to Ohio left NYC at 3 a.m. I was (again) drunk, clutching a cheeseburger, and exhausted. I repeatedly fell asleep on the guy next to me (I’m sorry, guy), woke up periodically to gnaw on my cheeseburger and then fell back asleep.
-Crying in the Columbus Greyhound station at 7 am because I couldn’t figure out how to open my cereal.
-Having a total breakdown in the Pittsburgh Greyhound station (the worst place on earth, I swear, Syria has nothing on a Pittsburgh bus station at 2 am) because there was a snowstorm and all the buses was canceled and I was TRAPPED IN THE BUS STATION CAN YOU BLAME ME FOR CRYING AND SCREAMING
Oh god, I once took a night bus from Amsterdam to Berlin and the girl behind me took off her shoes and kept sticking her toes through the back of my seat, so I kept waking up to her toes wriggling on my back. IT WAS THE WORST FEELING [[[SHUDDER]]] Luckily, Germany turned out to be the only place I went that actually checked passports at the border and it turned out she had some issue with her visa so they literally escorted her off the bus at 3am. Hopefully she was okay but at the time it felt like divine intervention.
The first (and only) Grayhound trip I made was from Pittsburgh to Chicago, with a transfer in Columbus. It was hell. Because it was summertime, I was wearing only a tank top and shorts, and of course our Night Bus was an IceBus. I asked the bus driver to turn down the A/C, and he did, and for a brief, blessed moment I was comfortable. Then someone came up from the back and asked the driver to turn UP the A/C because it was too hot. (Please note that this person was wearing a very large hoodie that they could have easily removed.) I spent the rest of the trip shivering and too cold to sleep, which was made all the more horrible because my boyfriend was snoozing comfortably with his head in my lap. I straight up cried because I was so cold and tired. Worst trip of my life.
While it was a different mode of transport, this reminds me very strongly of the last time I flew to Australia (from the UK; it took about 25 hours). I had moments where I doubted we would ever get there, and it felt like I would just be stuck on the plane forever. Being five hours into a flight, feeling like you can’t cope for much longer and realising you still have six hours to go (and sleep will never come) is the worst feeling.
While I have never taken a night bus in the US, I have taken one in China, and I will have to say that it might be the best thing for a cheap single traveler who’s only going a few hours. This is all because instead of seats, where you have to awkwardly contort in search of a comfortable position, they have beds. Legit bunk beds two high and three across. Downside is very little place to put any belongings, unless you stash them under your knees or something, but it’s pretty awesome.
WIndsor! <3
Yay, not-creepy kind older men!
Tomah makes the VG stop in Beloit seem like a rollicking good time.
Oh, good! This rumour was not entirely made up by my parents— I think I'll ask some locals for verification at some point.
I never go to the pond around back because it's always so dark and cold!! But it does look pretty
It has just gotten better since its revamp — better food, better coffee, better seating, even a new patio!
It's sad that Ontario Northland trains don't run anymore, but at least this station hasn't been shuttered…
I once took the bus from Minneapolis to Virginia (Minnesota), after thinking I was going to be killed in the bus terminal and having a Very Large Meltdown I hunkered down and avoided eye contact till I had to switch busses in Duluth. As a Canadian who hadnt had a functioning phone the whole journey I was DELIGHTED to find out the terminal had wifi. Cut to an obviously deranged man yelling at me from across the room “WOMAN! WOMAN! I need to make a call!” and me trying to explain that I don’t actually have service, then him getting very very agitated. I think that’s my last bus trip.
One more Cleveland story to the mix – I took a so-late-its-nearly-early-but-still-will-take-nearly-five-hours-for-a-three-hour-drive-max Greyhound bus from Cleveland to Pittsburgh before I had my driver’s license. Every single one of these, including the korean drama through the seat crack happened to me, with the exception that as a Greyhound virgin, I made the mistake of not claiming an entire row by pretending with sufficient aptitude to be passed out. My facade cracked, and a stranger sat next to me. Amazing how so little time can completely break down ones defenses…