I spent most of last week visiting friends in Scotland, which was all very well and good, but more importantly, I spent a SIGNIFICANT amount of time on a National Express coach.
Over the years I have known lots of people who don't travel at all - they stay in their home towns and raise their kids in the same neighbourhood they grew up in. They grow old with friends they knew in primary school.
Ok, I don't really know any old people languishing away in a retirement home for the (very) senior class of 1951, but I know this happens. Some people never ever leave.
Leaving the small Ontario town where I grew up was like tearing off an uncomfortable bra after a long day, then hurling it into the bin, rubbing the welts under my tits, furiously resetting the hair around my nipples in the proper direction, and swearing off under wire push ups for the rest of my life. Leave all that suburban fabric scaffolding for the post-breast feeding mothers. I've still got places to B.
But after a 14 hour round trip I could sort of see how it might be handy to have good friends across the street rather than across borders. I don't require much pampering on vacation but when eventually I was allowed to unfold all five foot, nine inches of me from a seat suitable for small or dismantled corpses, I felt an undercurrent of a 'this better be worth it' kind of feeling. For £27 I got my money's worth; now I want my 7 hours of discomfort's worth.
Don't worry, I got it. This isn't going to be a post in which I complain about having no friends and then slag off the hospitality of my very good, yet geographically distant friends. I thought I might slag off National Express instead; here's how:
1. The booking fee
Why the fuck do I need to pay a booking fee to book a place on the coach? What does the booking fee cover, exactly? Why isn't this mandatory one pound payment included in the price? I may be too poor to take the train but I'm not so stingy that I wouldn't have paid £28 instead of £27. It's the fact that the fee was pointed out to me. Cost of ticket: 26; booking fee: 1 pound.
I can't understand what this charge was for. It's as though National Express is so inconvenienced by having to book seats on buses that they have to tax you just for wasting their time, even if you book online.
At the charity shop we charge 2p for each carrier bag. This is to cover the cost of having carrier bags. We don't charge for a carrier bag unless someone buys one. We don't even charge people extra to pay by card. What else does National Express do besides put people on buses?
2. Tebay Services
Obviously I know that not every coach is going from Liverpool to Glasgow; subsequently not every coach will stop at Tebay Services. However, this issue is probably true for every long haul coach trip: One 20 minute break and the no hot food rule.
I've just spent three and a half hours on a freezing bus to Scotland, listening to someone on Radio 2 list all of the Mr Men, trying not to vom as the drunks from Manchester sit farting like dying cattle in the seat behind me. The next best recourse to killing everyone is something carby and hot to put me to sleep for the rest of the trip. Then the driver comes over the tannoy to inform us that we'll stop for 20 minutes but we aren't allowed to bring hot food on the bus. 20 minutes is not enough time to buy and consume hot food in a busy service station, especially since I, like everyone else on the coach, planned to take a shit during the break. Bowel movements and vehicular movements don't mesh without some serious ramifications.
So I ate crisps for the rest of the journey.
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