Day Eight: Father – Son Tradition, I’m Going Back to Indiana
This was the last leg of our journey. When we went to bed last night we did so realizing that our eight-day tour was coming to an end. We also went to bed hoping – praying – to get just one decent night of sleep. Wouldn’t you know it the worse looking of all the hotels we stayed in provided the best night’s sleep. Just when I was ready to call Tom Bodett, just when I was prepared to take the full blame for not paying the extra $10 for the additional half star (Hotwire rated the hotel 3.5 stars), I slept like a newborn baby.
Before I get carried away extolling the excitement of one night of uninterrupted sleep, I have to tell you that there was a glitch. At about 7:30 am, we heard a key being used at our door. We had taken the liberty of securing the door with the two additional locks. Despite it appearing obvious that we did not want any surprise visitors, the person outside the door continued trying to get in.
I jumped out of bed looked through the peephole. If you guessed it was housekeeping, you would be correct. What’s the deal? Again with housekeeping at my door early in the morning. This time housekeeping was trying to get into a room that was dead bolted from the inside. I opened the door and the lady immediately begin to apologize. She looked traumatized before I even had a chance to say a word. I suppose my reputation for beating hotel staff to death with pillows has supersede my visit.
I wonder if there is a picture of me in circulation among hotels in the South perhaps the same way there is a “Pick This Man Up At Your Own Risk Poster” circulating among the nation’s cab drivers.
http://youtu.be/0F_041ncqg0
One and a Half Business Women
Alyson the wonderful lady who has been working with me to complete the edit of the book Raising Supaman graciously accepted our invitation to have breakfast with us before we left town. Accompanying Alyson to our impromptu business breakfast was her daughter Hannah. If memory serves me correctly Hannah is nine.
Hannah was dressed like her mother. Both were wearing business attire. I found this scene to be very impressive. A working mother who had made the decision to allow her daughter to accompany her to a breakfast meeting. While I had extended the invitation to both so many other parents would either have elected to leave their children at home or they would have been accompanied by children who misbehaved the entire time.
Hannah has been raised superbly and short of being spoken to you would have not known she was at the table. Hannah doesn’t realize it now but her mother is setting the scene for her to have a head start on so many things: how to dress for success, what certain business terms mean; how to have pleasant professional conversation, how to eat in a restaurant, how to interact with adults, etc.
On the other hand, Hannah was not only learning but she was teaching. You see when it came time to order breakfast Alyson, Naeem and I ordered something we each had eaten many times. Hannah, however, ordered something featuring poached eggs.
I have to admit that I was stunned. The look on Alyson’s face indicated that she was no less surprised. Alyson’s double take was accompanied by a gentle question. “Hannah are you sure that you want poached eggs”. Hannah confidently replied “yes”. Although by now it was clear that Hannah had never had poached eggs, she remain unmoved by our dumfounded looks and lite interrogation.
When Hannah’s breakfast arrived, she did what I think we all expected. She looked at the food realizing now that there was little on the plate that she recognized or desired. Yet, Hannah never complained or acted out in any way. Hannah was exactly as she was when she shook my hand after being introduced – cool, calm and collected – a true professional.
Out of the Mouth of Babes
This may appear strange but in and odd way, I admired Hannah for ordering and trying the dish with the poached eggs. I can assure you that I wouldn’t have been so bold to have tried poached eggs when I was her age. Truth be told, even before I became a striving Vegan I wouldn’t have tried poached eggs. Bravo to Hannah!
I think Hannah may understand “The Meaning to Life” at her young age better than most. Her breakfast was free. If she didn’t eat the poached eggs, she knew that her mom was going to make sure she ate something later so starving was not an issue. Hannah had been equipped with life’s proverbial parachute and secure landing spot. Having this parachute and super comfy landing spot to break her fall, Hannah threw caution to the wind and jumped out the plane. She order the meal with poached eggs.
Now Hannah knows that she doesn’t like poached eggs which is something she did not know before she arrived. Hannah is now a different person than she was when she arrived for breakfast. Hannah has grown. In the future when Hannah has to pay for a meal she will have one additional item she can avoid trying.
I was glad to spend time with Alyson but no less pleased to meet Hannah. Hannah reminded me that you can’t grow unless you are willing to risk not liking something and unless you are willing try new things.
In many ways, Hannah’s experience sums up many things about Life. Not to mention the greatest lesson of all which is when someone else is willing to pay the cost for us to learn something about ourselves, we should embrace and take full advantage of it. There is nothing better than learning something valuable today that doesn’t cause us any pain or suffering now and helps us avoid the personal expense of pain and suffering later.
I Had an Epiphany
Today’s Megabus ride begins and ends with the word Epiphany. Epiphany according to Dictionary.com means a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. Epiphany, in the case of Megabus is much simpler to define. Epiphany is a word that if you can use in a complete sentence, you should not be on the Megabus.
There was a woman sitting a couple of rows behind Naeem and I who I will call Dr. Laura. The first time that I heard her was when she said “I had an epiphany”. Immediately, I thought another person who doesn’t belong on this bus. Dr. Laura, however, like so many Megabus riders had been infected with “loudmouth”. Loud mouth is a disease that apparently afflicts the mind and tonal perspective of many unsuspecting Megabus riders.
The loudmouth’s disease caused Dr. Laura to be unaware of her surroundings or how loud she was talking. She told the sad story of some guy who recently dumped her so that he could move on to something better. She was still living with him and was doing so because he wants to remain friends. He thanked her for helping him to be a better man for the new woman. She was worried about where to sleep – with him or on the couch – now that he no longer wanted to be with her. Blah blah blah blah blah. Not only did we hear this sad story once, we heard her tell it to the other person on the phone twice.
What ever happened to use your quiet voice when you are inside? Or keep your personal matters to yourself?
Not G-Rated
Frankly, the remainder of the Megabus ride from Nashville to Indiana is simply too raw to give an honest and accurate accounting in a G-Rated manner. The things we saw and heard would provide any parent with plenty of things to talk about with your child. From the effects of socio economic standards, to the state of physical and mental healthcare, to alternative lifestyles…this Megabus ride provided something that illustrates every segment of America.
Captain Cave Man?
Seated next to me as we departed Louisville was a person who reminded me of the star of the late 1970’s cartoon Captain Cave Man and The Teen Angels. Was this person the real life version of Captain Cave Man or was she a woman with some serious hygienic issues.
Like the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, I remain stumped. I do know that this person was wearing a black cotton tank dress. I can tell you that as this person sat down, there was hair growing from their armpits that was longer and thicker than my son’s locks. I can attest to the fact that there was a sunburst tattoo on their left lower thigh that appeared to be so confused by the state of the owner that it was trying to run away and hide.
Not Your Grandmother’s Makeover
As we stopped for dinner at the same truck stop from the first leg of our journey, Naeem and I hesitantly departed the bus. The cast of characters that we were sharing the bus with left me uncertain about the existence of our seats when we returned. Yet, we exited the bus hoping for the best in humanity which I must tell you – on this Megabus – was seriously in question.
As we walked towards the entrance of the convenience store. A man walked in front of us and a lady walked past us. Nothing unusual in that sentence until I tell you that the man and woman were the same people.
Apparently, one of the Megabus riders was undergoing a gender reassignment. They reminded me of a cut-rate version of Rupaul. This person was well over 6 feet 2 inches with hands large enough to easily palm a basketball. Speaking of balls, from their backside, at the end of their free-flowing weave were what I can only assume to have been two soccer balls stuffed in the back of their pants.
Butt implants perhaps or simply someone who had stolen a couple of Naeem’s soccer balls and was trying to smuggle them across the State line. I wondered do Naeem and I talk about the stolen soccer balls or do we just act like we never saw the cut-rate Rupaul and never speak of this day again.
Sea Pines Eviction
Speaking of reduced, there was a woman who we suspect had been asked to leave The Sea Pines Resort. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this woman was one of the many unfortunate Americans who lost nearly everything in the 2008 Financial Crisis. Whether she had made too many speculative investments, she had gotten caught up in the housing bubble or she trusted and unsavory financial advisor, I don’t know. But what appears clear that despite the fact that she was riding the Megabus, she maintained her Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon attitude.
Although it looked like she no longer had the wherewithal to remain in the company of the privilege few in the private Sea Pines community. She had found a way to create her own mini private community on the Megabus. She purchased two tickets so that none of the common – one ticket buying people – could sit next to her.
In an effort to grow her new exclusive community, she encouraged at least one other woman to join her in keeping the rift raft at bay and never riding Megabus without buying both seats on her side of the row. Proof yet again, you are what you think you are. She doesn’t have her million dollar home anymore but she hasn’t lost her exclusive attitude.
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
The subtitle is a bit of a misnomer. The DJ, Naeem, didn’t save my life last night. Actually, I was a hero yesterday. Those arms that kept cab drivers from picking me up helped me stop a senior from falling. I know saying that I saved someone’s life might be just a bit melodramatic but what else would you expect from me.
The truth is that an elderly gentleman who was trying to move around as the bus started deploying started staggering and was about to fall backward when I threw out one of my Hulk Hogan like pythons and kept him from falling. In accordance with Megabus custom, the elderly man said nothing to me. No thanks! Nothing. Zip. Nada.
As a legal aside, Megabus doesn’t appear to have a plan in place for the elderly or disabled passengers who board the upper deck of the bus. Megabus might be a Mega lawsuit waiting to happen.
Not Ready For Primetime
As I mentioned earlier, there was so much happening on the bus words cannot do it justice – certainly not the words from a G-Rated blog. I can’t tell you about Cussing Candy, the profanity rule breaking lady who cussed the whole way. I thought I had heard just about every cuss word and tonal inflection of cussing until I heard the derelict seated a few rows behind us. Where was Tom Cat when we needed him?
I can’t tell you about the African-American Colonel Sanders who boarded the bus wearing an all-white summer suit, with white sunglasses and black canvas knock off Chuck Taylors. Contrary to Colonel Harland David Sanders the American businessman and restaurateur who founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, the Megabus Colonel Sanders did not get on the bus with a bucket of fried chicken seasoned with the secret eleven herbs and spices. No, of course he didn’t! The Megabus Colonel Sanders was carrying Chinese food in a clear plastic bag.
I simply can’t share anymore about the Megabus ride except to say that this leg of our journey left me with an epiphany. My epiphany was that it was good to get off the Megabus and I’m not sure if or when I will ride one again.
How have you prepared your child to deal with the many facets of a changing and increasing diverse America? Are you preparing your child to transition from child to adult as easily as Hannah?