The bus journey from hell

My cousin's in Hyderabad for a short while and since I hadn't seen really hung out with her in a long time, I wanted to make a quick trip to Hyderabad. Since originally I had planned on going to Hyd on Feb 13th, I didn't want to spend a lot on this quick trip, so I bought a ticket on a non-a/c semi-sleeper bus. (The hierarchy going as - non-a/c, non-a/c semi-sleeper, a/c semi-sleeper and a/c sleeper. Sometimes there's a non-a/c sleeper in there, but not really to Hyderabad.) This costs less than half as much as a a/c sleeper so I felt good about buying the ticket. Soon I found out why it's that cheap.

For starters as soon as I got on the bus I found out that there was another gentleman sitting in my seat, #14. I talked to the conductor and he made a few calls to find out that they screwed up in the booking. He asked the (actually, let's call him AHole1) AHole1 to move to #22, also a window seat, just two rows behind. He refused. "My ticket says #14 and I am not moving. Bring the guy who booked my ticket and I'll talk to him." Exasperated the conductor got me a seat on a different bus.

[Meanwhile there was a meta drama in the first bus. A very huge guy(VHG) had the window seat and as soon as he sat in it, his neighbour (aisle seat guy - ASG) who was obviously cramped for space, called the conductor and said, "Look at this guy, look how he's sitting."
VHG (to ASG) - "What? How am I sitting? What do you mean?"
ASG (ignoring him, to Conductor) - "Ask him to move, I can't sit comfortably like this. Ask him to atleast lower the common arm rest."
VHG (to ASG) - "What do you mean? That can't be done. Why don't you raise the aisle-side armrest so you can get more space?"
ASG (actually acknowledging the VHG) - "If I do that I'll fall down."
VHG - "Then let's switch seats"
ASG - "Hmm. I dunno."

Meanwhile conductor to another passenger who was double-booked, this one on seat #13, "Look, you're skinny, why don't you take the aisle seat here?"
Skinny guy - "No way, why should I sit there? I want #13.]

Due to the change in buses I lost my window seat, which was a big problem since I only chose the non-a/c bus assuming I'd get some fresh air from the window. Somehow I fell asleep but I was woken up when I smelled a cigarette! "What the hell, why is someone smoking a cigarette on a bus?" I wondered. I looked around and saw that it was the guy across from the aisle. Furious, I gestured to him (since the bus was very loud) to ask him what he was doing with the cigarette. Seeing my gesture of a cigarette he replied, "Sure, you can have a puff but I think the conductor is going to get mad." Damn the loud bus! I had to tell him in spoken language to put out the ciggy. He compromised by opening up his window.

A few mins I woke up again to the same smell, but this time it wasn't him. I couldn't tell who it was in the darkness so I walked up the conductor to complain. "There's someone smoking on this bus, could you ..." I stopped in mid-sentence because I saw the cigarette in his mouth! I just put my head down and walked back to my seat.

Another hour or so later I was woken up by the kids in front of me who was shouting. Not crying, just yelling for fun. I tapped their father on his shoulder and said, "Dude, your kids are waking me up, could you quiet them down?" His angry response, "What do you want me to do? They're kids, they shout. What can I do? I can't control them." I had a large number of responses that came to my mind about a timely vascectomy or the words "adoption" or "strangling" but I just pulled my blanket over my head and tried to go back to sleep.

I'm not kidding when I say (not for the first time) I saw the merit of ssccatagapp. Sign me up.