Archive | November, 2011

The End of an Era

10 Nov

Last night, Joe Paterno was handed a letter saying he was fired fifteen minutes before a press conference where it was announced.

A man gives his entire life to an employer and is fired in a letter after he already opted to retire at the end of the season.

Whatever your opinion on the Sandusky Scandal at Penn State University is, make no mistake that this is a study in the power of the media, who put Paterno at the forefront (who it was agreed he did no legal wrongdoing) but allowed Curley to take administrative leave and Shultz to step down on his own, who both failed to take Paterno’s report to the next level and then lied to a grand jury about it.  Later, Curley chose to resign as well.  Why did everyone get an ultimatum from the Board but Paterno? They didn’t get letters; they got their legal fees covered by PSU.

By the way, McQueary, the man who saw Sandusky raping a child with his own eyes, still works there as well. 

I tried to write about other things today; honest.   But hey, instead of reading me today, read an article or two on this situation.  It’s a dynamic and dangerous monster.

Back to the regular business tomorrow, folks.  Thanks for letting me take a break from the typical topics to address something about which I feel very strongly. 

Feel free to discuss your thoughts on the situation, whatever they may be, so long as they’re addressed respectfully.♣

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Why Joe Paterno Shouldn’t Have to Leave

9 Nov

You can call Joe Paterno a coward and I wouldn’t disagree with you.

You can say that if Paterno would have followed through on his report, Jerry Sandusky would have been a sexual predator behind bars instead of a sexual predator roaming campus, luring young boys, and living in the comforts that his Penn State job provided him. You can say that because of the way the allegations against Sandusky were handled, the Penn State name has been tarnished, a cloud has been invited to hover over the famously successful football program, and a myriad of students and alumni are ashamed and disgusted. And again, I wouldn’t disagree with you.

But Joe Paterno shouldn’t have to leave his job unless he wants to; of this I am certain.

For the record, I don’t follow football and I didn’t go to Penn State.  

For those of you unaware of the news that has swept over Happy Valley these past several days, I advise you to Google Jerry Sandusky.  Or if you prefer (and think you can handle the wincing you will undoubtedly do as you read it), here is the Grand Jury Report on the matter.  It’s unpleasant.   It’s the story of young boys being treated badly by a man lacking integrity.

To put it mildly.

There is a rapidly growing consensus that because Paterno did what was required of him by law and no more, he should not stay on as coach of the Penn State football team.  The number of media outlets calling for Joe Paterno’s resignation and/or touting his moral failure include The Tribune Review, the Star-Ledger, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, ESPN Radio, The Altoona Mirror, and a myriad of others.

Perhaps the loudest resonating of these is that of The Patriot News Editorial Board, which featured a front page stating: “There are the obligations we all have to uphold the law. There are then the obligations we all have to do what is right.”

I entirely disagree.

We don’t have any obligation to do what is right.  As a society, we have agreed that we have an obligation to do what is law.  Though we would like to think that people feel morally obligated one way or another above and beyond the call of the law, the fact remains that our obligation insomuch as that we can be held accountable and hold others accountable stops where the law stops.  We are only obligated to do what is required of us, which is exactly what Joe Paterno did.  Having had a report brought to him about Sandusky’s alleged sexually inappropriate act, he reported the matter to his superiors – one of whom (Schulz) was an administrative head of the campus police.

But people don’t disagree that he did what was legally required of him.  In fact, both the Attorney General and the PA State Police Commissioner stated that there has been no legal wrongdoing on the part of Paterno.  The problem is that people believe that when nothing came of the report, Paterno should have done more.   He should have gone above and beyond what was simply required of him and met a higher standard – a super-legal standard – a moralstandard.

For failing this, call him a coward – fine.  Say that he has morally failed – fair.  But you cannot take away a man’s job because of either of those reasons.   

The graduate assistant saw a young boy being raped with his own eyes and yet we do not focus our wrath on him.  Paterno reported the incident to his superiors, who were legally obligated to report it.  They did not.  And yet we are not content to focus our wrath only on them.   We want Joe, because while we agree that he did what was required of him, we believe that what was required of him was not enough. 

I believe that’s our problem as a society, not his. If we want to hold people to a higher standard, then we must improve the state of our legislation.  We must require more of people.  We must see to it that the bare minimum is enough.  Because in examples such as this, that is all people will do and it fails to protect the innocent.

I don’t believe Paterno should have to leave his post as the PSU football coach because I don’t think we should be in the business of asking people to leave their jobs because they fail morally.  Yes, I think he could have and should have done more.  Yes, I think there’s something wrong with the structure of report within the University’s guidelines.  Yes, I think that had something more been done, a plethora of boys could have been spared alleged victimization by Sandusky.

But I don’t think Penn State can implement a reporting structure that has clearly failed and then penalize one of its employees when they fail to go above and beyond that reporting structure.   Likewise, we cannot agree that Paterno did nothing illegal and seek punishment nonetheless.

Joe Paterno did what was required of him and no more.  He could have, and he should have.  We can call him a coward, we can say that he morally failed, but we should not call on him to resign.  ♣

Update: Paterno announced that he would retire at the end of the season in the wake of the PSU scandal, saying that that Board need not spend any time on figuring out how to handle the situation because they had more important matters to address. Sadly, the Board of Trustees at PSU fired Joe Paterno via a hand-delivered letter on Wednesday, November 9th.

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An Attempt at Lucid Dreaming

8 Nov

I’m not sleeping much lately.  In fact, at all. I’m trying really hard but it’s just not working out.  So this week, it’s only appropriate that I attempted to complete my Lollipop Tuesday in my sleep.  Literally.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, you beautiful ladies and gentlemen.

I’m incredibly intrigued by the idea of lucid dreaming.  For those of you unaware, lucid dreaming is basically the state of being aware you are dreaming, which allows you to take control and manipulate the actions in your dreams.  There are a slew of tips and tricks for how to accomplish this, though on occasion it will happen independent of effort.  It usually sparks when you’re in a dream and realize that something defies reality.  For the most part, we accept anything that happens in our dreams.  For example, I’ve played Monopoly underground with grizzly bears and my grandparents and nothing struck me as odd.  However, when I ended up underwater in a dream and finally couldn’t hold my breath any longer, the realization that I can indeed breathe sparked me into lucid dreaming.

There were mermaids.  It was awesome; thanks for asking.

I’ve been reading up on ways to encourage more lucid dreaming and came across this list.  Most suggestions (keep a dream journal, look at your hands and ask yourself if you’re dreaming) are efforts made over a long period of time and maybe when I tire of this world, I’ll dedicate more time in reality to successfully escaping to fantasy.

After all, flying in a lucid dream is pretty much the best thing ever.  

Ever.

But for now, I was content to attempt a short term goal and initiate my own lucid dreaming experience by taking tip numbers 5 and 6 in this WikiHow: How to Lucid Dream.  Basically, it required me to set my alarm for 5 hours into my sleep cycle, wake up, and dedicate time to focusing on my dream, what happened, and the desire to remain in it.  The idea is that when I fall back asleep, I actively attempt to ease back into the dream but with the knowledge now that I am in it.

Doesn’t that sound awesome?  Doesn’t it sound totally killer to be able to wake up in the middle of the night, lasso control of your dream, and lie back down for the remainder of your sleep session flying over walls, talking to animals, and saying and doing anything you want? You can bend spoons with your mind or buy a circus elephant for your backyard.  All your deepest desires can be indulged.

Except last night I didn’t dream.

Or at least if I did, it was nowhere near the 5-hour mark.  All I did was wake up 5 hours into my dream, recognize the fact that I did not, in fact have anything to focus on or remember because my mind was a vapid, white space.  So I fell back asleep unaccomplished.

It’s unfortunate, really.  Perhaps this takes training or time or something special that just didn’t work out for me last night.  I’m not even really upset that I woke myself up in the middle of the night for no good reason.  I’m upset that I’m not writing a post about becoming a mermaid queen or discovering time travel or turning into a three-toed sloth and telling of my lazy adventures in the forest.

Don’t judge me.  There’s no judging on The Jackie Blog.  I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this.

I might try again tonight.  And maybe the following night.  After all, if I’m not sleeping well I might as well use that time to do something productive, like cure cancer or transform into a wallaby.

Plus, ever since I first failed at Lollipop Tuesday (Geocaching, followed by apple pie, followed by lack of lucid dreaming), I’ve been harboring a sort of resentment toward myself that might not be reconciled until I right my wrongs.   Maybe I can use my next lucid dream to successfully geocache and then celebrate with a well done apple pie.

Who knew that sleep could be so very productive and delicious? ♣

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A Calling from the WordPress Wizards

7 Nov

*cue angelic choir*

When I sat in from of my magical screen of wonder last night, I didn’t have anything to write about for today.

It’s been a while since that’s happened.  Usually I can at least write a bad post.  But last night I couldn’t even write a bad one.  I just couldn’t write anything.  So I did what I usually do when I have an issue with words, which is go check the drafts I have in my queue to see what half-written posts I’ve abandoned in the past that might be recharged with a bit of go-get’um-ness.

I had ten in there, but they were all turds.

I decided it was time to trash all the ones that couldn’t be saved (which was all of them).  Something about cats (big surprise), something about tweeting Alec Baldwin (it started out well but went horribly wrong), and other terrible gems that I never wanted to read again or risk anyone else reading were in my virtual storage bin of potential.  But when I attempted to delete them, WordPress told me that “there was an error moving them to the trash”.

I figured it was something or other to do with my wavering connection or my own general stupidity so I refreshed the page and attempted again to weed through the failures of my mind.  Again, WordPress denied me the right to purge my duds.

It must be a sign.  Yes.  It’s a sign from the WordPress Wizards that there is hope in these awful little leftovers.  Somehow, the server refuses to let me part with them for fear I’d be giving up the best post I will have written all year long.  One of them might even be viral gold.  Viral gold!  Once I have viral gold, I can do anything!

The problem is, I don’t know which one WordPress wants me to keep.  I mean, there are nine in there.  And on a scale of 1-10, they’re all zeroes.  So how am I supposed to tell which one is the winner?  How do I weed it from the rest?  Do they seriously expect me to expound on all of those subject and publish them? Because I won’t.  It would be blog suicide.

I guess I’ll just have to dwell on my nine half-written turds until one of them takes on a new and vibrant life that will spawn a large, deeply committed following.

I have heard your call, WordPress Wizards, and I shall not give up until I have dressed one of those pieces of trash into something acceptable. Thank you for your faith in me.

Or your server error.  …I’m going to choose to ignore that possibility. ♣

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The Best Diet Plan Ever

6 Nov

This plan replaces my former plan, which was staring at pictures of the morbidly obese.

I’ve found the best diet trick ever.

Really, like, the best.   I shouldn’t even tell you about it because it’s out-of-control effective and I could market it for millions and live off the money from your soon-to-be-skinny behinds for the rest of my life.

But you read my blog, and I believe that from time to time that should be rewarding for you in some way (speaking of which, yes, I’m still cooking macaroni and cheese from The Great Macaroni and Cheese Adventure; winner is to be announced after my belly is full of about 5 more pounds of pasta).  

I’ve been doing this thing called “watch absolutely disgusting food documentaries”.  For some strange reason I’ve become obsessed with learning more about the state of the food in our country and I’m allowing myself to be subjected to revealing, inside looks at the state of food made in a country based on capitalism, and let me tell ya: it’s totally gross.

Like, totally gross.

Anything that can make me put the cheeseburger I’m cooking as I watch the documentary back in the fridge when I’m done is a powerful potion indeed.

So it goes like this: just eat what you already eat, and do what you already do.  But every few days, sit down and give your undivided attention to a food documentary like Food, Inc. or Fast Food Nation or Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.   Settle in and watch where your food comes from and it will stick with you when you reach for your next meal.  Or when you consider what you had earlier that day.

At least, it’s totally working for me.  Unintentionally, but I’ll take it.  I really was just curious to watch and learn but in the past two weeks, I am finding it incredibly difficult to eat things that I know are super gross now that their super grossness has been revealed to me.

I could probably package this into some sort of viewing plan that best suits itself to the slow, terrifying realization that your food is disgusting and killing you. It’s the perfect plan for America: you can do everything the same, except you have to watch movies.  I could market it so easily; people love weight loss plans that don’t require them to do anything.  Doing that and adding more movie-watching time has got to be an enormous stroke of genius that will have me stockpiling gold bars for my wit.

Or I hope so anyway; I only have about 60 more days for this blog to pay off and that’s not shaping up to be a solid retirement plan anytime soon. ♣

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Battling the Mess Monster

5 Nov

The Mess Monster.

Last night I went Monica Geller on my apartment.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t. stop. cleaning.

I cleaned absolutely everything.  I went through junk drawers, cleaned out closets, scrubbed carpets, wiped down furniture; I was overtaken by a serious disease.  I started at 7pm and didn’t stop until after 1am.  I didn’t even want to clean. I just noticed the next dirty thing while I was working on cleaning something else.  Most of the evening was a blur but I faintly recall a long, yellow, rubber glove.

That means things got seriously, seriously, serious.

I can’t help but think that if I could only get to the root of what overtook me last night, I could replicate the experience in the future.  Perhaps I could extend it to something other than the house.  With that kind of overwhelming dedication to completion of a task, I could do anything.  I could build a tree house.  Or take up upholstery.  Or write a novel.

No, scrap that last one.  I’m writing enough this year.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t take a blood sample during the whirlwind.  I could have sent it to a lab for some tests.  Maybe it would reveal something in my system that led to this awesomeness and I could recreate it in the future.  Maybe I could even have it synthetically engineered and put it on the market for others.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if you spend 6 hours yesterday on something you haven’t wanted to do in a really long time but needed done?  I reorganized my pots and pans.  Do you have any idea how much time and frustration that will save me in the coming months?  Things had escalated to the point where I couldn’t even nudge the cabinet door the mess of metal inside would clamor about and fall out to the floor.  My carpet had a variety of mysterious spots on it that needed some thorough treatment. And the junk drawer that had too much junk in it for me to be able to locate the junk I actually needed? Fixed.  

I know you’re thinking about those areas of your place right now that need some hard love.  I know because yesterday, I was you.  And let me tell you, today feels glorious.  I might just dedicate the rest of my life to attempting to recreate the happening so that I can take blood, test it, synthetically recreate it, and sell it to you.

Listen, I have bills.

So tell me your dirty hiding places.  Really, I’m curious.  Where is the spot in your house that you need to seriously get a handle on but haven’t made the time?  I appear to have had many: junk drawers, closets…but the big winner was the pots and pans cabinet.

Tell me, dearest readers: where’s your mess monster hiding? ♣

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Rental Car Lust

4 Nov

I’m in lust with my rental car.

Like, bad.

For those of you just tuning in, 1) where have you been all my life? and 2) my major form of transportation was totaled not long ago, leaving me a fresh tutor of the public transportation system and a sad, sad girl.  

Apparently the insurance company decided to brighten our lives by giving Dave and I free use of a rental car for five days.  I don’t know why five.  I’m sure there’s some insurance algorithm to it.  Or maybe it’s just a monkey and a prize wheel; I don’t know.  All I know is I haven’t been this excited to be on four wheels in a long time.

To truly understand the complete and total lust I have for this vehicle, you have to understand that I haven’t had a car in my possession ever that’s been from the same decade as the current year.   Or hasn’t had a variety of dents and bangs and difficult personal problems to deal with.  I’ve spent a lot of time smooth-talking my cars and trying to encourage them to carry on with their lives in spite of their troubles. For the most part, I’ve just been thankful to have something that can get me from Point A to Point B, lack of air conditioning, power windows, power locks, a trunk, and two back doors aside.

Last night I sat in the car and blasted the air conditioning just so I could wriggle with excitement at its existence.  I played with the windows.  I admired the quiet, almost indistinguishable hum of the engine.  I bought groceries and when I got to the car, there was a trunk to put them in. Like, a nice sized trunk with a top that didn’t weigh fifty pounds and slam back down on my left arm if my strength failed while loading things inside with the right arm. As I pushed the grocery cart back into its stall, I lusted hard over that beautiful, working, nice-exteriored, unproblematic car like it was a high school crush.  And I have to give it back Monday.

That’s like giving me a puppy and then telling me to murder it.  I absolutely will not murder a puppy.

I’ve thought about a getaway plan.  I want to ride off into the sunset with this reliable, simplistic, capable car.   But they have my information on file and I can’t imagine I’ll get very far before I’m sent to a place that doesn’t require transportation beyond my own two feet back and forth from the mess hall.

I bought a five dollar lottery ticket when I was at the store because it had a  picture of the car on the front and promised to give away 10 to lucky winners.  I got caught up in the idea of a reliable car from the 2000’s.  I thought of how ridiculous it would be but was focusing more on how possible it was.  After all, that car has POWER WINDOWS.  The lotto ticket didn’t even have to offer a brand new car.  It could have just offered one from the last ten years and I would have peed myself if I got a car icon in and of the 12 scratch off squares.  But I scratched and scratched and nothing came but disappointment and the sinking realization that I am a complete and total moron.

I walked back to the car and admired its shiny exterior, its unworn tires, and its promise of reliable transportation and deeply regretted the 5 dollars I had just wasted on a scratch off ticket.

 I needed that money for the bus next week. ♣

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Hot Child in the City

3 Nov

Okay, here’s the thing: I’m repeatedly failing at posting on time.  Technically, I can post any time I want.  But as my regular sheep know, I aim for about 9am.  

But I haven’t actually pulled that off in quite some time.

Part of it is lack of sleep and a general inability to function on any level of intelligence. The other part is I have something like 60 posts to go and I’m having one of those lulls in inspiration.  As it turns out, after you post about 300 different things it becomes a bit overwhelming to imagine posting about 60-something others.

So in order to meet my posting requirement today but to avoid just writing a post about how I’m a failure, here is what I believe to be the third installment in “The Jackie Blog of the Past” posts.  This post, originally published in 2007, is from back when I had my old blog on a another server in a land far, far away.  As I browsed through the attic of my cranium of yore, I was amused by my current lack of personal transportation juxtaposed against this retelling of my frustration with it when I first moved to the city.  Enjoy.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Hot Child in the City

(Read: Stupid, Country Girl in the City)

I was given my dad’s old car this summer for my birthday. In part because my parents knew how hard it was for me to get decent groceries and transport them on the dirty, neglected child of Pittsburgh that is the transportation service. Mostly, however, it was because he got a convertible.

Convertibles and my family don’t go together well. I grew up most of my life wanting nothing more than to finally be able to afford both milk and cereal at the same time. Or something other than macaroni and macaroni for dinner. That being said, it blew my mind to be sitting in a car that was less than two decades old, running, quiet, and spacious. Oh, and a convertible. I actually felt awful and wanted to put a sign on the door that said “We can’t afford this!” in bright, orange crayon andmy own blood.

Regardless, my father is now somewhat more capable of completing his journey to fifty years old since he’ll be driving the depressing path to it in his nice car. And, luckily, I now have a grocery wagon with which to make frequent trips to Giant Eagle, a poorly named grocery store where they actually don’t sell any eagles at all.

Unfortunately, I’ve also become a bit of a taxi service. It’s not that people ask so much as it is that I offer…because I know how much I liked rides when I was a vagabond. Today, for instance, a good friend of mine mentioned he was headed downtown and wanted to know if I’d join him on a shuttle ride while he made some errands. I offered to drive him instead. Like an idiot.

So there I was, in rush hour traffic, driving around the city that’s impossible to navigate even when it’s 3 in the morning. I’m also too stubborn to pay for a parking garage….so basically I left at 4, drove around the city until 5:30, dropped him off and said goodbye. I got home at 6.

Some of this has to do with Pittsburgh’s impossible parking situation, and most of it has to do with the fact that I’m a bumbling idiot.

So these are my days in Pittsburgh. I’m either driving around downtown, wondering if I’ll wreck or find a parking place first, or I’m at home watching my housemate’s cat try to hump mine. TV altogether bores me at this point in my life. For some reason, when the decision to relax in front of the tube is juxtaposed with a good cat rape, I can’t stay focused on the TV.

Tonight, however, I get to change things up a bit and go to an audition downtown. Oh… well I guess the only part that’s different about that is the intention. I mean… I’ll still be driving around like an idiot again. My audition’s around 9. It’s 6:15.

I’d better leave now if I’m going to find parking. ♣

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Visits to the Lady Doctor: A Voluntary Violation

2 Nov

So I had my annual gyno appointment Monday.  It was a hoot.  It always is.

If you’re a dude, don’t stop reading just because I said “gyno”.  Don’t worry; it’s going to be okay.  I’ll ease you into it.

I don’t like going to the doctor.  I know that probably very few people do.  I’ve never really met anyone excited about it.  But I like to think that somewhere out there in the world are people who really enjoy the feedback and want all sorts of probing questions asked of them and to be poked and prodded and looked at with one eyebrow up and a look of distaste for their physical form.

But I’m sure even those folks don’t enjoy vagina doctors.

Listen, I’m just calling them what they are.

I always have to answer all these questions about myself on a little form before I can be seen.  They’re the same questions I answer any time I go to a doctor of any sort: smoking, drinking, sexual activity, blah blah blah.  But this year I found a new one: “Do you wear your seatbelt?”

This seems strange to me on many levels.  Mostly on the level that I’m not entirely sure how whether I wear my seat belt directly impacts the health of my Twinkie-lee.  Obviously if I’m in a car accident there are many physical concerns, but to be honest the safety of my Sugar Basin was never one of them.

Usually when you tell the truth on those questionnaires, you have to have a firm talking to from the doc when they see you.  Luckily, I wear my seat belt, so I didn’t have to have an in-depth discussion about the impact of wearing one for the sake of my Lady Jane.  Though I must admit, I was tempted to just for a good time.

Instead I got to have a lively conversation about a separate question for which I chose to tell the truth: “Do you exercise regularly?”

It’s the term ‘regularly’ that I really can’t get around.  So I checked ‘no’.  And seeing that my weight has increased each year in parallel to my age, my doc decided it was time to have a chat.  I explained that even though her chart says I gained weight from last year, what she doesn’t know is that I actually gained a lot of weight since last year and over the past few months have lost it.

She was unimpressed.  Rightly so.  After all, I’m a little more Jabba the Hutt-y than I would prefer.

I think the real kicker was when she asked what I was doing and I emphasized that I’m eating better and walking a lot (thanks again, no car).  Her response was “Walking is what I tell my 80-year-old patients to do.  Kick it up a notch, k?”

She really is very charming.

So after I felt all fat and disgusting, she violated me, as vagina doctors are paid to do.  There’s something so cold and calculated about it. I appreciate her holding casual conversation with me as she geared up to probe my Cave of Harmony, but I can only be so chummy when you flash a cartoon-sized economy tube of “EZ GLIDE” jelly and squeeze it into your hand as we converse.  Under any other circumstances, I would run away screaming and fumble for my phone to dial 9-1-1.  So the fact that I’m paying her to do it to me makes me feel like there is a deep, deep injustice taking place here.  Or perhaps something prostitutional.

I like that new word I just made there.  “Prostitutional”.  It sounds patriotic.

At any rate, there needs to be some word for it, because “annual check-up” doesn’t really capture the magic of the moment.  

I’d like to think that I’m on the path toward healthy living.  Actually, I know I am because I’ve been consistently losing weight and eating better for a few months now.  I think that when I’m all svelte and wonderful and people ask what my secret is, I’ll tell them my vagina doctor yelled at me.  I’ll tell them I did it for the sake of my Ace of Spades and nothing else.  They’ll be surprised to hear that weight gain was such a concern for the Wonder Down Under and I’d like to see the reactions.

Especially when I tell them that’s why I’m always sure to wear a seat belt too. ♣

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I Finally Learned How to Use the Bus

1 Nov

It's so big and scary.

Oh man, only 10 Lollipop Tuesdays left.  Whatever shall you do with your Tuesdays in 2012?

Cry, that’s what.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, ya’ll.

In light of the Great Car Totalage of 2011 (also known as The Day of Sorrow), I decided it would be a good time to hone my bus skills.  And when I say ‘hone my bus skills’, I actually mean ‘learn how to use the bus’.  I’ve been doing the whole car/walk/bike thing for every one of my almost 6 years in the city because the idea of mass transit paralyzed me with fear.

There have been two exceptions: when I was with a large group of friends (monkey see, monkey do), and when the Burning Crusade Expansion for World of Warcraft was released.  I had to take a train out of the city to get to a WalMart, where I stood in line for the midnight sale because I was a sad, sad slave to the massive multiplayer online fantasy game

There’s no judging on The Jackie Blog, so stop it.

Anyway, I’m carless and it’s cold.  And while I still walked for miles out of fear of the bus system, it’s gotten a lot easier to try new things under the umbrella of a Lollipop Tuesday Adventure.  I’m happy to report that I’ve competently used the bus without a single familiar face to ride with me for an entire week. 

But since I’m sure lots of you live in the city and think that’s pretty lame (and you obviously don’t follow the ‘no judging on The Jackie Blog rule), I thought I should go a step further and experience the Megabus as well.

For those of you who aren’t aching for a cheap way to get from Point A to Point B on a regular basis, allow me to enlighten you to the ways of the Megabus.  You may have seen them rolling around the U.S. or even Europe.  They’re bright blue double decker buses with an enormous picture of a portly, cherry-cheeked guy in a bright yellow uniform touting seats for just one dollar* (*plus .50 registration fee).  It’s somewhat true that you can get a seat for one dollar.  It’s more true that the first 5 people to book a seat on a bus get it for one dollar and that the price goes up from there.  To get a seat for just one single George Washington, you have to book pretty far in advance.  It might be best to go by the “eh, I might go to NYC 5 months from now.  I’ll book it just in case” method. 

All the one dollar nonsense aside, it’s still a cost-effective mode of transportation.  For some routes, it’s half the price of a train and still well below the price of a Greyhound.  In most cases it’s also faster.  And the only thing you sacrifice is your personal bubble, any sense of comfort , and the ability to drink, eat, or pee comfortably for the duration of your trip.

They seem to have a pretty lax tracking system wherein you only need to get in line and have your reservation number handy.  They don’t ask your name, they don’t ask for ID, they don’t check bags, they don’t do anything that you would expect a transportation service to do.  You just give them a number and you board.

Sometimes you’re boarding in the middle of a much larger trip.  For example, there is a stop in State College between Pittsburgh and New York.  If you’re boarding at the midpoint (State College), you have to get bold because when you board, every New York passenger will have a pile of junk on the available seat, a pair of headphones in, and look mean as possible so you don’t choose to sit by them.  And you can either wander around to look for the folks who will willingly give up their seat with a little eye contact pressure, or you can just march right up to the folks who splay out all their belongings in their area and ask them to please move.  

Personally, I find the latter much more amusing and gratifying overall.

On the return trip, I was blessed by the Megabus gods, who made it appear as if the company had overbooked and sent a second independent charter bus to pick up the excess customers.  But thanks to a bundle of no-shows, the extra bus wasn’t necessary.  Having already been set on a course to Pittsburgh, however, the driver was willingly accepting passengers.  So I stepped on the bus expecting it to be fully crowded with cranky, tired New York folks and instead found myself on board with only 3 other humans in site.  I had 1/4 of the bus to myself and it was glorious.  

It reminded me of  another Lollipop Tuesday when I found myself in an entirely empty movie theater.

Sometimes you get a little unexpected reward for mustering up the mojo to try something new. ♣

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