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The Wrong Foot

The bathrooms at the McDonalds on the Champs-Elysees in Paris are made out of black marble; the boat ride to Tangiers from Spain is only 2 hours.

 These were some of the things running through Steve Falowe's mind as he boarded the non-stop Charlottesville Flyer from Pittsburgh to Iowa. He scrunched up his forehead when he thought about using his vacation money to finance a trip to the Midwest in the middle of October.

Karen looked up at him not wanting to speak first. She knew he loved to travel and had seen more by age 23 than most ambitious retirees. He canceled his first trip to Asia to take this trip with her. Although she kept reassuring herself that her sister's wedding was important, she couldn't help but wince at the discrepancy between the two in terms of excitement. Oh, sure he would be meeting her parents for the first time, not to

mention her high school friends and hometown. But India was almost a whole continent in itself with more people in Calcutta than in all of Iowa.

"It looks like we can expect to get there around supper time two days from now," Steve said letting his breath out slowly, pausing.

"34 hours."

Karen pulled at her gloves, cramming her fingers into the very tips.

"Lets go." mumbled a man in a wrinkled grey and red uniform; he was rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands as he climbed up the stairs. He half-tripped over the second step on the way up to the driver's cabin.

Karen locked her eyes on the ground, she knew there was little she could say. He agreed to come and that was all she could ask. She squeezed the insides of her coat pockets as she stepped up into the buss and walked to seat 37C and 37D.

"I'm sorry those are our seats," said a woman wearing a dirty white sweatshirt proclaiming 'Crespo Elementary is #1' in pink and purple letters.

Steve and Karen looked at each other and them back at the woman. Steve dug in his coat pocket for their ticket stubs. Karen heard a sneeze. Not a powerful adult-type sneeze like her father was capable of, a short, bubbly kid sized one. Steve heard it too and motioned Karen to investigate. She leaned out into the aisle and saw four pair of eyes

peeking out from behind the woman's waist. Each had a little river of snot running from nose to mouth, together they formed a symphony of alternating sniffles and slurps as they used their tongues instead of tissues.

"Kids" is all Steve said, scrunching up his forehead again.

"Can I see your ticket?" the woman asked rubbing her own nose with the back of her sleeve.

Steve and Karen found themselves sitting directly in front of four sick children, and a mother who knuckled her kids instead of talking to them.

"They're probably just going to Hershey Penn," Karen thought to herself.

But none of them budged, not at the Hershey bus stop, in Ohio, in Gary Indiana or Chicago Illinois. Thirty-three hours, 7 states and 11 gas-station-hot-dogs later yet the family of most in need of Children's Tylenol showed no signs of moving out of their lives.

That is, until the driver announced the Fort Dodge stop, over the crackling PA system.

"Fort Dodge, Fort Dodge, blink and you'll miss it, stopping in ten minutes."

Mother and kids erupted into a commotion of hands and voices clamoring for carry-on duffel bags and damp pillows.

Steve leaned forward, putting his head in his hands, staring at the orange and red Skittles, which vibrated and bounced every time the bus went over uneven road. How two separate parties, getting on the bus in Pittsburgh, could end up in the same one gas station Midwest town was more than Steve could comprehend.

The runny nosed rabble tramped past Karen and Steve and piled out into the Iowan backdrop of changing leaves and the smell of burning cornhusks. They grabbed their bags and followed a good distance behind their buss mates.

"Lynda! Oh I've been so waiting to meet you!"

Karen's jaw locked as she recognized her sister's voice and saw her embracing the mother of the traveling epidemic.

Her parents were also there but didn't seem to notice them either. Finally Karen's mother looked up at the two of them with moist eyes and said, "Karen come over here and meet your future relatives."

After two days of praying for a separation from the brat pack, Karen found herself hugging "Lynda". Out of the corner of her eye she saw Steve approaching her dad with his hand outstretched, her dad handed him the smallest of the bus ride kids.

        Justin Olmanson

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