The surreal rolls on
I’m here! I have not been flooded, submerged or seized by ICE goons, I have simply been too much away from the laptop, riding on buses and trams and trains across time zones; and then this week rolling down the Desert Road and into the Ruahines and on down to the end of the island for more life moments.
I mean to write about it all at much length; I mean to do it justice. It’s coming this year, but I want to give it the time it merits.
Just to make things more delayed, I’ve used my available time these past few weeks to get everything properly set up at my new home at Ghost. There will be be a whole lot more quiz action, daily, with a leaderboard. There will be a Glossary of New Zealand. There will be a thing called Exploring. There will be proper introductions, and explanations. The official move should happen this week, and than normal transmission will resume.
Just while I’m getting ready, and by way of setting out how I propose to look at things this year, let me share this from Bluesky. This is some singular live reporting of what the holy crap you may discover is going on when you wake from a nap on your long bus trip.
I feel it to be strongly emblematic of the unrelenting firehose of I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING shit we continue to be sprayed with daily.
I feel it offers a modicum of solace and reassurance in the sense that most of us remain wedded to the position that there’s a right way and a wrong way and a batshit crazy way, and we remain very much in favour of the first.
The Bus
Transcript from the Bluesky account of Musicology Duck
Post 1 I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place
Post 2 they switched drivers at a rest stop and the new driver is telling everyone that they’re the ones on the wrong bus??
Post 3 he’s refusing to talk to anyone while he’s driving and is now just driving really fast
Post 4 people are calling the police
Post 5 I think I might end up in Vienna Virginia but I’m …not sure???
Post 6 two big guys just went up and said we’re going to Union station!! and he said no we’re not
Post 7 someone got the bus company on the phone
Post 8 they’re looking into it but he’s still insisting we’re not going to Washington DC
Post 9 It’s particularly weird because this route only has three stops: penn station, union station, and DuPont circle
Post 10 The bus company says they are trying to call the driver and he’s not answering
Post 11 Someone pulled up Waze and said he’s going 75 in a 55 zone
Post 12 and the lady behind me says he said he’s stopping in Vienna and Manassas, so I’m going to end up like an hour outside DC at 10pm on a holiday and also…who knows WHERE
Post 13 Ok someone got the bus company on speakerphone and is walking it up to the front of the bus
Post 14 I can hear the bus company guy yelling YOURE GOING TO UNION STATION
Post 15 the lady with the speakerphone hasn’t come back to her seat yet 😬
Post 16 The company told him to take us to Union station and he screamed that he doesn’t get paid enough and is refusing
Post 17 I uh, un-recommend Best Bus
Post 18 Two passengers in the front are still fighting with the driver, in the back we’re debating whether calling the police is going to set him off
Post 19 the bus is divided on calling the police
Post 20 if people take their phones up with the company reps on speakerphone he grabs them and hangs them up
Post 21 this is uh, fucking crazy
Post 22 People are screaming at him “you’re going to be fired”
Post 23 Passengers are now fighting with other passengers because they don’t want the guy to be set off anymore than he is
It seems like the consensus is get him to just stop the bus somewhere??
Post 24 someone else tried to talk to the driver bc we are almost to DC and he says he has family to go home to and doesn’t have time to stop in DC
Post 25 I uh, hope he has time to be arrested
Post 26 Ok someone called the police but suggested they avoid pulling the bus over bc he’s driving so erratically. We’re passing DC
Post 27 woman behind me is now screaming at the bus company on the phone
Post 28 the company wasn’t being super helpful so she goes “just so you know we just reported to the police that we’re being kidnapped”
but the area being what it is we have to call different police lol
Post 29 It sounds like they are going to have a different bus pick us up in Vienna.
Some woman is really upset and is screaming at the driver
Post 30 Police are asking where we’re going to stop and we don’t actually know because we were never supposed to stop here lol
Post 31 Ok he’s getting off the highway and the lights just got on
Post 32 this guy is insane
Post 33 passengers are blocking the bus from leaving and there’s a kid under 18 who won’t get off because his mom said he was supposed to be at Union station
Post 34 he was trying to crush this girl with the door???
Post 35 Wtfff
Post 36 The company sent another bus to get us and I feel like I probably should have taken the metro but I’m hoping there’s a company rep at Union Station to scream at
Post 37 Crazy guy finally got everyone off the bus and drove off, police didn’t show possibly bc we couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be Vienna or Fairfax county 🙄
Post 38 sorry my mentions are a wreck now—will be sending photos and videos to the company tomorrow and will update if I learn anything about how this happened or what they did about it
but uh, thanks for tuning in for this episode of “musicology duck gets briefly kidnapped”
Post 39 updates: nobody from the bus company was in the booth at Union Station
Also people are asking about the kid I mentioned-- he got off when the second bus arrived, but we had to make the original driver get his luggage out from underneath and he was, unsurprisingly, a real jerk about that too
Post 40 also a clarification based on people’s comments: the driver wouldn’t give us his name but he was apparently French (at one point a passenger even started arguing with him in French thinking he just wasn’t understanding lol)
UPDATE (Next Morning):
woke up to a refund and an apology by 7am
Company’s Response:
We sincerely apologize for the experience you had during your trip on January 19. We understand how upsetting and concerning this situation was, and we apologize for the inconvenience it caused.
This matter is currently being reviewed by our management team. While the investigation is underway, we want to assure you that this was an isolated incident and not reflective of our usual service.
As a resolution, all passengers on board will receive a refund for this trip, along with a round-trip travel credit for future use.
Your refund will be processed on our end and we may take 3 to 5 days to reflect in your account.
Thank you for your patience, and again, we apologize for the disruption to your travel plans.
