The Roaches on the Bus Go Round and Round

Passengers screamed in panic as a bus traveling from Atlantic City, New Jersey to New York City became the site of a cockroach infestation. Yes, shortly after departing  Atlantic City, hundreds,if not thousands of cockroaches, fell from the crevices in the ceiling and attacked the 48 passengers aboard the Greyhound bus. What transpired next was a scene from a B-horror flick as mothers threw themselves over their children to protect them from the descending bugs while other passengers screamed and stomped in panic. The driver was forced to pull over and call for another bus. The passengers scrambled to exit and then waited in the cold on the side of the road for a replacement vehicle to arrive.

How did this happen? How did one bus become the preferred mode of transportation for thousands of roaches?  What made them all want to escape Atlantic City  on the same bus at the same time? Did they lose at the casinos?  Were they not happy with their roach hotel? Were they upset to learn that Donald Trump will no longer be their human leader in Atlantic City? What exactly went on in the roach world that they all boarded the same Greyhound bus and headed out of town?

Honestly, I cannot imagine what kind of terror those people on the bus went through.  There they were just sitting in their seats minding their own business when suddenly they began to feel “thump, thump, thump ” on their heads.

Some of the passengers initially thought the ceiling on the bus had a water leak until they looked around and witnessed the bugs dropping around them.  While usually I try to take into account the feelings of my fellow human beings, I will admit loud and clear that roaches falling from the ceiling would have put me into major survival-of-the-fittest mode.  I would have jumped over old people, mothers, children, pregnant women, and most likely the disabled to get the hell off that bus. And until my panicked ass got off that bus,  I would have been in that aisle doing a tap dance that would have made Gene Kelly envious as I tried to kill as many of those disgusting bugs as possible.

I don’t want any nasty letters from the PETA people saying cockroaches deserve to live their lives in peace. No, they don’t because once they invade buses and want to ride for free while the rest of us have to pony up ticket money, they forfeit those rights to live. They are ugly, gross and they make crackling sounds when you smush them. They have long antennae and they need to die.   I know that some scientists say that these insects are amazing in that they are so resilient they can even survive a nuclear war. But guess what? I don’t care about their resilience; I don’t have to care about their survival in a nuclear war until Kim Jong–or whatever the hell the name of the chubby kid from North Korea is–sends his nukes into our airspace. I only want to know now what makes the roaches dead, dead, dead.

Okay, as you can see cockroaches do scare me a tad.  But I would imagine they are scaring the crap out of Greyhound too today.  The bus company apologized and refunded all ticket money back to the passengers.  Well, I guess that is nice of them, as long as they are inspecting the rest of their fleet for similar insect stowaways. In truth, Greyhound could have gone the Carnival Cruise route and forced their passengers to stay on board until help arrived.  Until last week, I thought that having no plumbing and having to endure gross smells on board an ocean liner were the worst traveling stories I have heard, but the attacking cockroaches might just surpass them.  Yes, this story provided the traveling world  quite a distraction from the cruise problems.  Hm. Now, that I think about it, I wonder if Carnival has access to cockroaches and Greyhound buses?