Although Madison is a great campus and offers students many amenities, there are some times when a journey off-campus is required. Whether the trek results from desire to get a cool haircut or seeing a good movie, travel is required. Yet, the simplest mode of transportation is also filled with untold horrendous nightmares. I refer to the bus.
The bus, a seemingly innocuous purveyor of mass transportation, seems like the safest bet for travel, but I've known many good men who have never returned from their expedition. Luckily, I'm a seasoned traveler of all things bus related, and I feel the need to share my wisdom on how I've managed to survive for two-and-a-half long years.
The most threatening aspect of the bus comes from bears'more specifically, Kodiak bears. Fortunately, bears don't ride the bus that often, so you shouldn't have to worry about them. However, if one scrounges up enough money to board the bus, the old adage of playing dead still holds strong.
Aside from bears, the only threat the bus presents is all the other people. If other people sit down next to you, they could be weird, and that's bad. Not only do they prevent you from putting your feet up on the seat, they might also carry on long drawn out conversations with their box of Lucky Charms, which is weird.
Weird people, unlike bears, will not fall for the playing dead routine. It's actually an amateur mistake to pretend to sleep in order to dissuade others from sitting next to you. For some reason, the site of a sleeping person is a prime target for someone to sit next to.
No, the only way to combat weird people is to use their own strategies'you must fight weird with weird. If they proclaim themselves Jack Bauer and start yelling about how there's not enough time, you simply respond by chugging a bottle of Febreeze. If you suddenly find yourself sitting next to someone in an Easter bunny outfit, just start singing 'The Safety Dance' and weep openly every time you say 'leave your friends behind.'
By outweirding your competitors, you will come out the victor, because in the battle of weird with weird, weird always wins out.
I once survived an entire bus trip to Minneapolis by talking to my shoe. A packed bus, and I was the only person free to put my feet up on the seat next to me, because I weirded out the other passengers. Whenever someone came near me, suddenly I started talking to 'Mr. McShoeigan,' telling him jokes, petting him, basically anything I could do to divert people from me.
When the dust settled, I sat alone. Well, alone, along with Mr. McShoeigan, who it turns out was actually quite a charming individual'I actually felt bad putting him back on my foot.
Once you void out the bears and weird people, there's very little to fear about the bus system. Sure, the actual monotonous, dull journey might cause you to go insane, and it's very possible you'll misread the map and somehow end up in Singapore, but at least you can do these things in the comfort of your own seat.
