Bus people v. Airplane people part III

I remember passing my home town of Kaysville northbound on I-15 shortly after 9 in the morning and thinking that there was no way that we were going to make it to Laramie going 40 mph in this snow storm. It was slow going and Cracker Cat Lady a.k.a. CCL was making it almost torture. But, I realized that there were a few unspoken rules that came with bus travel. The CCL quite abruptly discontinued her conversation as soon as we were out of the suburbs of the Salt Lake City area. At forty mph it only took just over 2 hours and numerous eye drops and declining peanut butter cracker sandwiches.

I was so relieved and it looked even better when the storm started to clear up and we were up to 70 mph (I didn't even know the Greyhound would go that fast). In my mind I did the math and we were going to make it to Laramie on time. Hallelujah! At this point I put on my ipod and decided to listen to a little Tom Petty and take a load off. But as soon as I did this, Mr. Sony Walkman sitting next to me took off his headphones and motioned to me. I took off my headphones and he asked if he could listen to my ipod. He told me that he had just run out of batteries and that he had a jack that he just plug in and allow both of us to listen to my ipod.

It wasn't like he was asking to listen to my ipod and deprive me of the listening pleasure, so I agreed and he plugged in his double jack. So the song started with the piano playing slowly, in Tom Petty's song Southern Accents, and I will never forget the face of this man. It was as if I had placed some kind of musical vomit into his ears. His eyebrows curled together so badly that it looked like it had become a single brow. It was eerily similar to the old man in the bitter beer face commercials.

Now, I don't know why I thought this, but, I felt obligated to switch songs for this moocher Sony Walkman battery-less man. He was not a noticeably large or intimidating person, and I doubt that he was carry a firearm or lethal weapon of any kind, but I decided that I needed to change the song. The only problem, I did not know this person and how was I supposed to know if my musical selection was going to be acceptable? The people pleasing personality trait that is usually a good thing for one to claim was causing abnormally high levels of stress in a situation that did not warrant it at all.

I remembered that I had heard some loud rock coming out of his headphones as I boarded the bus. I had recently put the double CD of Guns N Roses Live on my ipod and decided that it was a pretty good bet. A slight nod and air drumming confirmed it...