The bus ride

Jeffrey, being neither psychic nor clairvoyant, had no idea how this bus ride would end.  So boarding the bus with 47 other passengers seemed an innocuous enough event. But little did he know.

One hour into the ride (through the hills, on the way to Yakima), Jeffrey noticed that the driver appeared to be in a state of panic and the overall speed of the bus was rapidly increasing.  At almost the same moment, a mild buzz of chatter arose within the bus, as the other passengers seemed to notice the change of speed.

Suddenly, a middle aged, slightly overweight, balding man stood up and shouted, "I have a plan.  We need someone else to drive!" And with that he shoved the bus driver out the window and took over driving.  Jeffrey watched as the driver rolled to the edge of the road, into the ditch and finally to a stop.  The man stood up and watched the bus careen down the road.

The bus continued its acceleration.  After a few moments, a second man, this one older still and balder, shouted, "This isn't working," and he jerked the middle age man from the driver seat and took over the responsibility.  After four or five changes of driver, with the same, predictable results, a few people hurled themselves from the bus, hoping for the best.  Jeffrey watched each one, in turn, as they hit the pavement and rolled to a stop.  Some rose to their feet and toddled off, back towards town, others lay motionless.  Jeffrey was uncertain of their final state.

Finally, Jeffrey took his turn at the wheel, just moments before the bus propelled off of a cliff, near the rounding of a corner.  As the tires left the pavement, Jeffrey thought, "I wonder if we could have tried something different."

Nose candy

George sat down the menu and tried to catch the eye of the waitress.  He had the menu only a moment before he knew what he wanted to order.  The diner was not very busy, so George expected fast service.  Finally, the waitress appeared and focused her attention on another patron, a somewhat grizzly, construction worker.  What happened next shocked George but at the same time did not surprise him at all.  As the waitress spoke to the other man, the trail of a smallish, pink worm wiggled out of her nose.  The waitress wiped her nose with the back of her hand but then suddenly dropped to the floor behind the counter.  The construction worker started, then slightly stood up and peered over the edge.  In a flash, the worm leapt onto his face and worked up his nose.  He started to frantically rub his face, but then calmly sat back down and picked up his menu.  The waitress in turn, stood up from the floor, smoothed her dress and again asked the man what he would like to order.

George pushed his menu away from him and left the diner.  This was merely another weird event in his escalatingly weird day. It all started at five am when George walked out of his garage door to set his garbage can on the edge of the sidewalk.  He had just started to turn back to his house when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a struggle.  The 49 gallon "Tough Boy" garbage can of Ned Smith, George's neighbor, was eating Ned.  George could only see Ned from the waist down and his feet were frantically kicking as he slid into the dark green can. The lid dropped shut with a smack and all was silent.  George stood in dumb amazement, with no words leaving his lips.

"Umm, did you....?"  Were the only words that he could muster, coming back into the kitchen, to his wife sipping her coffee.  His wife thought he was nuts as it was, so George said no more.  The human hand frying in the pan on the stove, next to the two sunny side eggs, should have caught his attention, but fortunately George missed it.

On his way to work, two hours later, things only continued to digress.  Stopping at the local expresso drive through, the one ton truck in line in front of him contained approximately fifteen seemingly dead bodies, nearly stacked, like cord wood, in the back.  The truck was just pulling away when George pulled up.  He would have said something to the girl at the window, but noticing that she had no pupils, George refrained.

Pulling into the company parking lot, more than slightly shaken, George emerged from his car and started toward the front door of the building.  His boss, Mr. Abernathy Leidenfrost III was coming up the sidewalk from the opposite direction.  George started to say good morning but the dozen or so red, winged creatures that circled around Mr. Leidenfrost gave the appearance of a corporate business meeting.  And George knew better than to interrupt one of those.  So he held his tongue and the door and all of them entered the building ahead of him.
           Mothra flew past the window just outside of George's cubicle several times throughout the day, but George said nothing.  Now at lunchtime, this.  George left the diner, on this his short lunch break, and sat down on the curb next to an elderly woman eating a shopping cart.  She offered George some, but George politely declined the offer.

"All things being equal," George thought to himself, "I don't quite think I'm myself today." And with that, George stood up and began to walk south, towards home, but not exactly sure why.

George had been walking for nearly eight blocks when the gaggle of Girl Scouts ran past, with several functioning chain saws.  These followed by a 500 lb man in a wheel chair carrying a large tuna.  George avoided eye contact and continued on his way.

It wasn't until he arrived home that George truly became concerned.  Someone had run over his mailbox and left no note.  Not even an apology.  George lay down on his bed and waited for another day to come around.