THE BINGO BUS…

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE BINGO BUS…

Many years ago in an effort to make extra money I used to drive those big Greyhound-sized charter/tour buses for a local bus company. Living in Upstate New York our trips often took us to New York City for baseball games, shopping, Broadway plays or school trips to the Bronx Zoo. We also went to lots of other places including moving our Army troops around from base to base.

Because the drivers were unionized the trips were essentially handed down on a seniority basis. Each week the dispatcher would put up a list of trips for the week for the drivers to see and then “bid” on whatever trip they might like to take. Being nothing but a part-time driver and very low on the seniority list I pretty much got whatever anybody else didn’t want, although that was rarely a bad deal. And often, trips would come in at the last minute that would have gone to more senior drivers had the trip been booked farther in advance.

There was however, one trip that ran twice each week. It would be on the bid sheet each and every week. And never..ever..never..did ANYONE ever bid on it. It was the dreaded “BINGO” bus. Whenever a trip went unbid it was up to the management to assign an unscheduled driver to run the trip. It was always like drawing the short straw. You NEVER wanted to hear that you had been assigned to the “BINGO” bus.

The Bingo Bus left our Binghamton, New York bus garage every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon at 430pm and headed off to the Ukrainian Church Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Bingo hall paid for the charter and one of the driver’s jobs was to collect the cost of the run from the bingo hall manager upon your arrival.

The people who religiously rode that bus were the most miserable, nasty, awful people I had ever met..at least until I discovered The Villages and its inhabitants. These people could never be pleased. The bus was too old. The bus was too new. The bus was too hot, the bus was too cold. The bus was too fast, the bus was too slow. It was a never ending litany of complaints, and on top of it all, they were not paying for the ride! The bus was a free trip. Just show up and take a seat until the bus was full. Of course if you want to see somebody who’s REALLY PISSED OFF..just be the unlucky guy who had to tell people that the bus was full! It was wise to make sure your health insurance was paid up in that case! Nothing made these people happy. Win or lose they were ALWAYS just miserable nasty people. Another reason the drivers hated to run this route is that it is customary to give your driver a tip. Back then the general rule was a buck a person. So on a regular charter trip you could expect somewhere between $40-50 extra. It was a nice bonus, and with the Bingo Bus you earned ever penny of it. EXCEPT..if you were lucky you went home with a handful of change. Maybe $7. Lousy tippers…Just like real Villagers!!

The other day as I was reading thru TV favorite showcase for Villager ignorance, arrogance and stupidity..that infamous website..Bitch..er..um..Talk Of The Villages, I was reading one of my favorite sections for stupid statements..the restaurant review section.

Whenever you read TOTV’s restaurant section the far and away top complaint is how (insert restaurant to be cursed here) is SO S-L-O-W in bringing drinks, food, the check or whatever. These places are always SO SLOW. Time after time that is the complaint.

Now I don’t know about you, but when my wife and I head out to a sit-down restaurant, eating is only part of the experience. Because we actually like each other we want to sit down and talk and enjoy each other’s company. Yes, we don’t want to wait for an hour to get our meal, but we don’t have a stop-watch on the server either.

Villagers are a whole different breed. They want to be served NOW!!! They don’t want to talk, they don’t want to spend any downtime. They want their food and most especially their BOOZE right N-O-W!!! Why? Who knows? Here are people who are retired. They have no place to go and no deadlines to meet and yet they are as hyper as a 13 year old after a half-gallon of Mountain Dew and a pound of skittles! And when they don’t get what they want NOW..they are in a full-blown snit and are ready to call for the manager and insist the server be fired, and of course try to scam a full meal comp out of the establishment. It’s sad, and their behavior is just plain disgusting. If you want fast..then pull your $40,000 tricked-out golf cart up to the drive up window at Mickey’s or Burger King and order a damned Whopper.

Today..my wife was home unexpectedly from her teaching job and so we went out to the local Cracker Barrel for some lunch. As we entered the restaurant several couples were converging at the doors at the same time. As we entered, the lady at the back of the line cut a sharp left and went RUNNING for the hostess stand like Peyton Manning trying to get out of a tight squeeze and having found a sliver of daylight to run to. She raced to the stand..and indeed beat us all. She was panting and out of breath..she waved her husband to get UP there with her! She walked in with the hostess with this huge smile of victory on her face. We..who were 2 couples behind were seated less than 30 seconds later. I guess everybody needs an accomplishment to point to.

As we sat down we had a nice lady as our server. She was an older lady and whenever I see this I always wonder if the person is working because they want to or because they have to. Mostly I suspect HAVE TO, and that always makes me sad. In that case we always try to make sure that the server doesn’t have to make extra trips for things we want in an effort to ease her workload. Right across from us I see she is stuck with a group of 8 Villagers, and you just knew that these people ran this sweet old lady ragged. It is the mark of a true Villager to continually send servers back for non-revenue items like extra water, napkins, butter pats and so on. They left shortly after we ordered and I looked after they left. 8 people eating..3 measly bucks on the table. Yep. They were Villagers alright!

As I thought back about the (thankfully) few nights I had to spend driving the Bingo Bus, I wondered where all those people are now. I figure their children are alive and miserable as hell in America’s Nastiest Hometown.