1) I am a pregnant teenager secretly escaping from the confines of my strict Christian household to go make a new life for myself (and baby) in New York City, a place where anyone and everyone is accepted. Sarah McLachlan's "Adia" plays in the background.
2) I am an aspiring teen pop star leaving behind my sheltered, perfect Greenwich, Connecticut upbringing and sacrificing everything for my music. A demo I cut in my friend Blake's basement plays in the background, intercut with sound bites of my parents telling me, "You're going to go to med school like your brother!" and "If you walk out that door, don't you ever come back!" Also, I don't know it yet, but I am pregnant.
3) I am in the same position as Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in Speed in that the bus is in danger of blowing up, but instead of it needing to not go below 50 MPH, the only way to save it is to make sure no one sits in the seat next to me before the trip even begins. I achieve this in various manners, i.e. attaching a sense of superiority to my purse, telling people it is reserved for the man I am running away with then breaking into hysterics when he does not show up, complaining about my irritable bowel syndrome, etc. "One is the Loneliest Number" plays in the background.
4) I am in a band with everyone else on the bus, but we have just gotten into a big fight over my being placed prominently on the front of our new tour t-shirts. After being rescued from a bitchin' party and a serious near death experience, I have been rescued and we are back on the road. Elton John's "Indian Sunset" plays in the background. (You'd be amazed at how many people don't know the words to this one.)
5) I am once again a pregnant teenager (the Chinatown bus is the preferred traveling method of all pregnant teenagers, as revealed in a 2001 NY Times poll.) This time, I am traveling from the uber-conservative land of TENNESSEE secretly to get the dreaded A-word. However, while riding the bus, a kind, gentle elderly woman named Millie, who is cuter than Natalie Portman lying in a field of puppies, sits next to me. Millie tells me she is on her way to see her six grandchildren, the "loves of her long, wonderful life," as she puts it. Millie makes the 14 hour bus trip from Tennessee to New York every weekend to see her family. Touched by her story and the sparkle that still shines in her eye, when the bus driver stops at Arby's and shouts out, "Back in 15 minutes!," I stand up and say, "No, Mr. Busdriver. I'll never be back here!" I then proceed to run 345 miles all the way back to Tennessee (can't be good for the baby) and fall into my mama and papa's loving arms. However, they immediately smell the scent of "ethnic" food on me and promptly kick me out of the house. I catch the next 4:30 bus to New York. "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" by Dean Martin plays in the background.
Other Things I Like to Pretend While I am Riding the Chinatown Bus:
1) That McDonald's doesn't make my stomach sound like something you would only hear at the Bronx Zoo
2) That I didn't just fall asleep on the parole officer sitting next to me's shoulder
3) That I don't have to poop
4) That I am actually riding the Amtrak and I am just sitting in the special "poor people" gimmick car
5) That no, I must have fondled my own breast in my sleep (I really need to do something about those callouses.)
6) That it is perfectly reasonable for a large bus to out speed a Maserati
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