Surrealist Reality

Ok so...it happened again. Britain trip over the weekend. Uneventful. No, not entirely true-- it didn't rain once. That in itself is an event when it comes to Britain, especially Northern Britain, especially York.

Anyway, we were supposed to come back on Sunday evening but of course...of course...the volcano erupted again and we were, once more, stuck in our holiday destination, if indeed one can refer to York as such. And in my sometimes absurd optimism (!!!) I thought I'd never get another opportunity to talk about a volcano again, especially the beastly Icelandic one, unless I decided to study for a degree in geology, but I digress...

After the initial horror and the ongoing, absolute disgust at the thought of having to deal with the ghastly low-cost low-thinking airline company to get a refund, or try to rebook this cursed flight, we found ourselves wondering about how to get back. There were no flights available; the trains were all booked with the exception of 1st class, which was unsurprisingly astronomically priced. Not having wings, we had one choice left: the horrendous bus.

Oh...oh the desperation one feels at that moment...knowing one will be glued to a stinky seat for 15 hours...the sheer horripilation, the helplessness, powerlessness...lessnessnesses a go go. I even shed a weak and solitary tear which ran down my cheek timidly, but which still managed to smudge my mascara and stain a rather nice cashmere pullover, but again...this is immaterial. Cashmere won't get me home, will it?

So yesterday afternoon we start making our way to the first of three buses we ended up having to take. From York to Leeds, Leeds to London, and London to Paris via the English Channel ferry. Absolute dread.

Or would have been, had it not been for the surreal part of the trip. You thought it was the volcano erupting twice in under a month and us being so unlucky that we found a way to be caught twice by it, didn't you? Well...it wasn't that. Not only, anyway.

It gets better. Or worse. I'm not sure yet. Certainly funnier. It's also long, though, so if you've read up to here thinking you're three-quarters of the way through this post, I suggest you go get yourself a glass of water, a cushion and make yourself more comfortable, because the story this entry is about begins here! I'll wait.

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Come on, hurry up!

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OK, ready?

So we take the bus in Leeds... I have my iPod on full volume playing Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name (the invective was directed at the volcano), so I can't hear the driver and Jules arguing at first. When I notice it, I press pause and try to figure out what the problem is. This is when I notice the driver's accent, which could be classified in two main categories: a) general-purpose Northern English from Leeds/York and b) virtually unintelligible. I'm rather good at language though, so I manage a few words such as "I didn't know, did I?" and "where's thas ticket?" He was complaining- loudly- that Jules had boarded the bus without showing him the tickets. So far so fair.

We board it. There aren't two seats together available, so I sit more or less in the middle of the bus and Jules goes to the back. About 10mins after we'd started for London, the driver starts making a safety announcement on the microphone. All the usual things about seatbelts and emergency exits, leaving luggage on floor and what-not.

I turned my iPod off so I could hear what he was saying, and also because I was rather intrigued by his accent.

How surprised was I then when he starts detailing the manner in which we're supposed to dispose of our rubbish during the ride ("make sure the small plastic bag by your seat is properly closed") and how long we were allowed to talk on the mobile phone ("no more than an hour or your phone will be taken away from you"). At this point I started to chuckle. I had not imagined a safety announcement on a 2-hr bus drive could last more than...30 seconds. His had gone on for over 10 minutes at this point.

It was nothing compared to what followed. He heard someone laughing and became very annoyed. And the more annoyed he got, the louder the laughter became. Something about the washing of hands after going to the loo was mentioned, and at this point I simply burst out laughing, a laughter that came from deep within my soul, which erupted from my gut like the magma from inside the Icelandic volcano. "I will finish this announcement AS SOON AS THE CLOWN WHO'S LAUGHING NOW STOPS!" Guffaw. I laughed so hard that I thought I'd pass out. The more he screamed on that mic the less I could help it, and it became a comedy sketch, almost as if we'd planned the whole thing. People all around me started to giggle, and the driver became positively furious.

Indeed, his contempt for me grew to such an extent that he threatened to have me removed from the bus!!! "I WILL tell the next driver and your ticket will be INVALID and you will be proseCUTED! There is CCTV cam-russ spread all over this coach and we WILL find out who you are!! Is THIS funny? Is it?" Yes! It is! And so I laughed more. Oh how I laughed. A hot, round, ungovernable, boisterous laugh which ended up by extracting another solitary tear from my eye, but this one did not stain any pullover as I wasn't wearing one.

At this point, under comical duress, I put my hand up and say through my laughter "I'm sawwwrry, it's me, I'm laughing, but it isn't at you hahahahaha". But he wouldn't have any of it. He wanted me OFF THAT BUS! He started to cite legal articles left right and centre that would allow him to do it, and threatened...threatened...and then he said he's been a driver for 40 years and he's never been treated with such rudeness. And on. And ON. And I laughed and laughed.

This is when a brave woman at the front decided to stand up for Freedom of Laughter. She called him on his aggression in the face of such good-natured appreciation for his comedic skills and said he was going too far now, that enough was enough, that you simply cannot - cannot! expel people from a bus merely because they're laughing, and certainly not after they'd apologized so humbly.

I thought I'd have to invoke freedom of speech and that made me laugh even more and even harder and with renewed vitality. Imagine! Freedom of speech on a bus! Caused by a safety announcement! I even had my words ready in my head: "well, if I can laugh at Her Majesty Queen Lizzie the 2nd, and if I can laugh at the Prime Minister -- uh, who is he again? - why can't I laugh at a stupid, surreal safety announcement that presupposes I'm a total idiot, on a bus from Leeds to London?!?! Are you the driver or my mother?" But yes, you guessed it. I did not say any of these things because I couldn't stop laughing and because he apologized quickly "I'm sorry I was a bit off"; so I spent the next 30 mins trying to stop chuckling by turning the iPod back on, feeling slightly sorry for the brute, and smiling at how pointless, pathetic, meaningless, ridiculous my entire weekend had been. I certainly wasn't going to ruin my make-up by crying.

That man will never know how much joy he brought me yesterday.

Notice the detail: word written on ground in front of bus.