Breaking Odd

 That's right boys and girls, another bus story.  You have to admit, it's a treasure trove of  hilarious, zany close calls with death.

Just look at it.

Here, look again.

Folks, that's not normal.  You don't see those anymore.  When you do, you think something's up.  Maybe it's a traveling troop of Elvis impersonators!  Maybe it's full of Muppets on some kind of hair-brained world tour!  Maybe it's a mobile meth lab!  HUH?  Who would think that?  Oh, the West Virginia Drug Interdiction squad may think that.  In fact, when they saw me puttering up a steep mountain pass, chuffing black smoke as truckers flew by me, they were certain they'd found themselves the Pablo Escobar of mobile meth.

I was just going home.  Sheesh.  I had only recently purchased it and got it out of the shop in Missouri.  The shop owner did his darndest to get me not to drive that bus.  But he was wrong.  I made it! On this trip  I'd made it as far as the WV/PA border when Johnny Law pulls me over.  And I totally understand why.  I mean, just look at that bus.  It's like a harbinger of strange.  Like a weapons-grade clown car full of squeaky over-sized hammer-wielding nut jobs in comically large shoes.  I'm sure the officer half expected Marvin The Martian or Bugs Bunny to answer the door.

And I can't really say those images are far from what confronted the poor civil servant when I greeted him.  You see, I went to get that bus because my wife really wanted it.  And I'm into doing crazy stuff.  So why not?  But I didn't prepare for the journey at all.  For some reason I brought no clothes.  I wasn't ready for the cold.  I found some items of clothing in the bus from my first trek in it the year before (that's another story).  I had no shower and didn't much care.  I stunk like diesel because I have no idea how to fill such an old bus without bathing myself in fuel and I was sweaty and dirty from attempting to single-clutch a double-clutch transmission.

So I'm bundled up with odds and ends (we'll get to that in a minute).  My hair was pointing straight up from dried sweat and me playing with it for 3 days.  And my eyes had nice dark circles from me not sleeping much.  I looked like a grade-A crackhead.  

Now for the wardrobe:

• Some kind of cheeky t-shirt
• A hoody
• Sweat pants (quite dirty by now and all stretched out at the knees)
• Slip on faux dress shoes (shut up)
• A brown crushed velvet dinner jacket

I looked not unlike a homeless man who had swapped clothes with Lenny Kravitz in an ally so Lenny could avoid a mob of fans.  I was wearing them all at once because I had gotten tired of trying to drive and put on/take off clothes as temps changed.  There was sweat involved.  And that's what greeted the officer who was already convinced by the look and physical state of the bus that I was indeed either making or trafficking large amounts of meth.

"Hey, there!" I said as I opened the door.

"Can you step out of your vehicle, sir?"  asked the officer.

"Sure, man, what's up?" I said.

"Uh, sir, do you have any idea how you look?"  the officer queried, almost as if he himself didn't believe what he was seeing.

"Oh, totally" I said, "I've been trying to get this thing home for 3 days now.  I'm sure I'm a wreck."

"Well, I'm from West Virginia drug interdiction.  Do you mind if I search your vehicle?" asked the officer.

"Not at all!" I replied.  You see, I've always enjoyed a good traffic stop since I stopped doing drugs at 17.  It always makes me feel like I'm getting away with something even though I've done nothing.

The officer seemed almost shocked at our conversation.

"Do you mind if I call in our dogs to search?  It will go much faster. " he said, almost excited at the prospect of such an easy call.

"Dude, I'd LOVE to meet your dogs."  I gushed. 

So he lets me sit in his front seat while he calls in the canine cavalry.  It must have taken an hour for the dogs to get there, search the rig, and leave.  Sadly, I never got to meet them.  It was probably for the best.  Last thing I needed at that point was getting arrested for having pocket-bacon powers.  I'd instantly take over as leader of the dogs and the police would no doubt be crestfallen.  It was actually quite a nice break from driving to sit silently with that cop in his super-drug-stopping car.  It was even nicer when he finally got the word that there wasn't a single drug on that bus.

"Sir, I am just so sorry about all this." the officer muttered.  "It's just, I mean, do you have ANY idea how you look in that thing?"

"Oh, of course."  I laughed.  "I'm sure the outfit doesn't help."  

"No, no sir it doesn't." he laughed.

We had a nice conversation then about full-timing and how amazing it seemed to him that people actually do that kind of thing and yadda yadda.  He simply could not grasp why people would live that lifestyle.  He didn't understand.  But there was one thing he and all the husbands I know understand about the bus.  

"Dude, my wife wanted it."