"Everything you need" is Ball State's motto. When I moved into Schmidt Hall last August, I had no doubt in my mind that I'd brought everything I needed with me, and if I didn't have it, Ball State surely would.
Then, when I thought I might like to make trips to and from Ohio once a month, I realized - whoops! - I had forgotten to bring a car to college. Silly me.
After looking over my various options (walking, hitchhiking and constructing a crude-but-efficient car out of used cereal boxes), I opted to travel by Greyhound bus. In the interest of remaining objective, I will not mention that, in retrospect, I would rather have let Jeffrey Dahmer remove my internal organs via salad tongs, as it would have been less psychologically damaging.
To better understand the system that is bus travel, we must take a glimpse into the past. Here, we learn that bus travel started in 1914 when our great nation learned that the wagon train wasn't working out so well anymore.
With a bus, they thought, they could reach Oregon in three days as opposed to the standard five months. Also, the oxen could ride aboard if they got sick of walking. This tradition would be carried on today, I'm sure, if conditions on the average Greyhound coach were sanitary enough to accommodate oxen.
My magical round-trip journey to Columbus, Ohio, started at Muncie's very own MITS station and included eight stops along the way, a seven-hour drive, six inches of foot room, five languages, four screaming kids, a three-hour layover, 200 miles and a partridge in a pear tree. The major highlight was meeting and speaking with a drug dealer at the station in Indianapolis and nearly getting to witness his arrest. You think I'm kidding.
I will be a good journalist and tell you that traveling by bus is not really so terrible.
It gets you where you need to be and costs slightly less than your mortal soul. Though, in my experience, I think both the bus and the wagon train have their advantages.
For example, I was not as concerned with getting lost in the arctic tundra and becoming a meal for my fellow passengers a la the Donner Party as I was about becoming an on-the-road snack for my 400-pound co-seat-occupant, who had so generously left me the edge of our seat plus the whole aisle in which to sit. Greyhound, in a nutshell, is a cost-efficient way to develop a refined hatred for mankind.
I have spoken with my parents about my vehicle situation, and word on the street (Solomon Road) is that they are going to give me the family's four-cylinder Geo Tracker if I can afford the insurance.
I am excited about this for two reasons. 1.) I will have a vehicle and 2.) it will run. I will even overlook the fact that it is gray and pink, and that one day in the not-so-distant past while my father was driving it and the rear window exploded.
Next year I will be a college sophomore, foot-loose and fancy-free, in my gray and pink Geo Tracker with the windows rolled down and J. Geils gracing the ears of onlookers gazing longingly from the MITS stops, yearning for my freedom, my spirit, my car.
If you see me, and you happen to be one of those yearning onlookers, flag me down. I might give you a ride.
I don't know, though. It might be crowded in there, what with the oxen.
Write to Aleshia at barigirl@hotmail.com
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