national express..
Last Easter, I wrote this.. and a nightmare it was, a bloody nightmare!

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Have you ever felt like you're in some shitty, low-budget indie short film? That's how I felt for five hours yesterday.

Now, normally National Express coaches from Leeds to London are absolutely fine. This one was not.

I clamber on at Leeds at 3pm, sit myself in the second row and am happy because noones sat next to me. Wave farewell to lovely friend.

Aaaaaanddddd... cue the latecomer who promptly shuffles into the seat next to me. Fantastiche, a fatty.

And off we roll! Luckily, I manage to sleep for an hour or so (3 nights of being out til 4am and getting up around 8-10am does this to you, kids!), until I am awoken by a hand on my leg. Yes, fatboy is touching my thigh. Urgh, no mate, let's not do that - I squidge myself against the window and pray he'll go away.

He doesn't. Instead, he decides he wants to sleep now, and decides my chest is a perfect pillow and that he will invade my personal space and flop all over me. Now, those of you who know me well, will know that I can be person-claustrophobic at the best of times - touching happens on my terms, and I can be funny with people being too close to me, even if they're people I love.. so this wanker decides it's a fantastic idea to keep me pinned against the window and keep *touching* me. ARGH.

Then the snow starts. We're around Nottingham, and it's blizzarding. This is when I feel someone grab the back of my head. I turn around - a baby. Clutching and pulling at my hair. Gurgling and dribbling at me. Oh god, please no. It's mum beams at me in an "Aww, isn't it cute, he likes you" fashion - I'm thinking "Urgh. Foul sprog".

Then the inevitable happens. Babies tend to make lots of noise. This one is no exception. It shouts and screams when it's happy, and bawls and yells when it's not. Then the one I had failed to notice in front of me did too. I sat there, staring out the window, trying to block out the noise and ignore fatman's hand on my knee.

This is when the chav sat opposite me starts playing music on his phone. Loudly. As if things couldn't get any worse, the large indian family all around me beging having a bit of a singsong. They have a fucking singalong, in a blizzard, on a motorway, in a coach, on Easter Sunday. They are singing Bollywood songs and I have officially lost the will to live.

I didn't have my mp3 player, or a book, and my phone wasn't working properly. I was contemplating if it was possible to kill yourself with a travel sized issue of Cosmo and a packet of salt and vinegar squares. Incidentally, I managed to make that packet of crisps last for 45 minutes whilst fatboy kept trying to slip his hand up my skirt.

4 hours later, we arrive at Golders Green coach station. And here is where the emotional bit comes in. There was a man stood there in the snow, and he had a lovely face. Not hot or owt, but just looked really friendly and excited that he was going to be seeing someone he'd missed. He shuffled over the the door of the coach, and stood there, waiting expecantly, with a huge excited beam on his face. You know when you've not seen someone you love for ages, and you know they're on their way, and you're waiting and you're so excited and it shows on your face? That was him. He watched every person get off the coach until noone else was coming. Still he stood there, waiting, watching, grinning. Then the doors closed and his happy face just crumbled, he hung his head, pulled up his collar and stepped back to find some shelter from the snow. Bought tears to my eyes that did, he just looked so crushed that his beloved person hadn't come off that coach.

I then froze my tits off walking in the snow from the coach station to the bus station. The end.
(mercary, Tue 3 Jun 2008, 21:41, Reply)