news from the road: childhood fears claim the night

I am currently on a Megabus going to DC.  I got a bunch of free tickets because they had a special where they were just giving them away (??!) so I decided to take a poor woman's vacation.

Anyway, things were going so well.  I hung out with friends in Charlotte, caught the bus, discovered the internet worked, was getting some sleep (it's the red eye) when "splat splat" - some guy two seats back from me threw up in the isle.  The sound is unmistakable, even without retching.

This prompted an interesting response.  Two ladies sitting near me really flipped out, "Oh heeeell no, hell no!!!" and the unfortunate man who was sitting next to the sick man said "aaaaaaay!!!! stop the bus!  this man is throwin' up!"  Seconds later the alternate driver turned the lights on and assessed the situation.  They pulled the bus over and he told the sick guy to go outside and handed him a trash bag, the whole time the women were squawking about how gross, the smell, oh hell no, etc.  The sick man stood right outside the door and said "hey man, where does this bus go?" and the alternate driver said "we're going to DC" and then the sick guy said "oh yeah I'm on that bus!  where does it go?" "to DC!"  "Hey man don't kick me off the bus man."

So with the women still squawking the sick guy comes back on, holding a bright orange trash bag with rolled down edges.  He tries to calm everyone down and says "I'm ok, I'm ok, don't kick me off the bus" and as he's saying this he weaves into a pair of seats and obviously is losing his balance.  More "Oh HELL NO!! OH HELL NOOOO"'s.  He sits and the alternate bus driver turns the light off, puke still all over the isle and a faint acrid smell wafting around.  The ladies protest and say "Is someone going to clean that up?  I smell it!! I smell it!"  The sick guy says, "you can smell this?" and the lady behind me says "yes, it makes me nauseous."  Here here.  The Asian man across from me with long fingers says "can we put something over that?"  The bus driver walks around, finds some paper towels and a roll of toilet paper and I think he put a few sheets on the mess, handing off the rest of the paper products to our resident life-ruiner of the night.  Sick man says he will clean it up.  The woman across from me is chattering wildly in French to someone on the phone, obviously about what is going on on the bus.  Woman behind me demands the smell be covered up, someone sprays cologne directly on the floor.

The driver turns the lights off and we start to go again.  Everyone starts to calm down and shut their eyes.  Then we all hear the "splat splat" again.  "OH HELLLLLLL NO!!!! GET THE FUCK OFF THIS BUS!!"  The alternate bus driver, after a long pause of thinking about what to do, says loudly, "Man you throwing up again?" "I'm ok."  "Man use the BAG!"  The ladies are really mad now.  I look over and see that the Asian man with long fingers now has a face mask on (like the kind people wore during the swine flu scare).  They realized, like the rest of us, that it is up to us to contain this person because Megabus apparently has no protocol for sick people and what to do.  The lady behind me tells the sick man, "go to the back, go sit away from us" she even tells him to sit in the empty seats in front of me, which makes me immediately hate her.  She tells him to go to the back and sit near the bathroom, that way when he is sick he can throw up in there.  A beautiful idea.  The sad sick man takes his orange bag and goes to the back, he has not returned.  The woman who speaks French turned her light on and started talking to no one in particular, "I don't even care because this bus ride is FREE.  I'm getting a refund!  In my country, you can't do that!!!"  I'd like to know what she means.  She also demanded a "breathalyzer, or something in here, that SMELL!"

This whole thing brings to light one of my deepest fears I have harbored since childhood.  I don't know where this came from, I'm pretty sure it was one traumatic experience that I have blocked out- but I have a horrible fear of people throwing up on buses.  Riding the bus in elementary school taught me to keep my feet on the seat, almost at all times, because if someone pukes, it will roll all around the bus and it will TOUCH YOU.  I lived in fear for so long.  I also just generally have an irrational fear of vomit and throwing up in general.  I'm almost positive our sick passenger is drunk, or on drugs, so I'm not all that scared of being sick, thank god, which is the primary fear.

Anyway, you are scared of things for reasons.  My feet were already up when all this went down.  It's going to be a long night.

(PS, I understand wanting to be drunk or black out for a long bus ride, but really?  REALLY??? This happened maybe 20 minutes after he got on in Durham.  Asshole.)


edit: I'm now in DC, finally off of that godforsaken bus.  The guy ended up locking himself in the bathroom on the bus and passing out.  The driver had to pry the door open with a screw driver.  At a rest stop, a passenger took it upon herself to cover the isle with paper towels and trash bags.  More notable quotations from the ladies sitting near me:

"Oh my god, if he had gotten his filth on my Snuggie, Mama Africa!!!!!"
"Yeah, he's lucky that it didn't get on me, I would have really gone off."
"Why they going to get him out of the bathroom?  Let him stay in there until we get to DC!"

me: "He is probably passed out in there!"
lady: "he might be dead in there.  I don't even care if he's dead!"

"he just came on the bus LOOKING to sit next to someone, he knew he was sick!  he knew!  He WANTED to sit next to us!"