a little additional info

A few people have asked for a bit more about the situation with Moi-- not Muy, as I incorrectly put it in the original post. We had stopped at the bus depot in Kansas City, one of three longer stops on my trip, the other two being Denver and St. Louis. At Denver, I had to give a separate ticket, for some reason; at the other two I was able to give a reboarding pass that they handed out when I gave my original ticket. I dunno why they have that distinction. Moi got on the bus at the same time as I did, in Vegas, at 3:05 on Friday. I believe that he was supposed to have transferred to a different bus at Denver to go on to Chicago, but I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that I loaded back onto the bus at Kansas City without incident, but that he was detained at the doorway. It's fair to say that he might not have been doing any good in getting back on the bus if he had already missed his connection, but it's worth saying that there was a bus leaving for Chicago from St. Louis when we were stopped there, so that seemed to be an easy solution.

I couldn't throw Moi his jacket because he was on the other side of glass at the door to the depot, and again, there was a Greyhound employee waiting at the door of the bus, adamant that I couldn't get off. Why he felt he couldn't take the coat over to the door, I don't know. I understand the point some people make about little delays adding up to a lot in a national system, that if Greyhound had a looser policy, then buses would be constantly running behind, and that a slowdown on one bus can screw up a big part of the system. But we were sitting there for at least five minutes after I realized what was going on, and probably more like ten.

The jacket is just indicative of a system where rules become their own reason for being. And while Greyhound was generally good about having signage and announcements in both English and Spanish, the situation was a harsh demonstration of how difficult it can be to get around this country without English skills. As someone with professional expertise in evaluating oral English proficiency, I would guess that Moi had a pre-elementary grasp of English. Like I said: I was worried about making all of my connections myself. I once tried to get to Charles De Gaulle Airport from the Metro and fucked it up so bad that I almost missed my flight.

I have no idea what Greyhound's national policies are. All I can tell you is what I experienced.