Old McDonald had a bus
Friday, January 12th, 2007I was awoken from a drugged stupor by something that sounded like a child having a major, head-bursting tantrum.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH it screamed. I wondered whether the child in question was being tortured in some inventive way, so I had a look out of the window. A distressed goat was being roughly manhandled and bound by the side of the bus. Clearly, it was joining us on the journey.
I surveyed the jumble of arms and legs that belonged to the 250 passengers already squeezed onto the 25 seater bus, and wondered where on earth they were going to put the goat. Under the seat with the onions? Slung from the ceiling, from whence it could shower everyone with urine and goat poo? It couldn’t go behind the driver’s seat, because that space was already occupied by a deeply traumatised chicken.
I needn’t have worried. They just put the goat on the roof.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH shrieked the goat, as it was hefted skywards. BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, it wailed pitifully as it was attached firmly to the luggage rack.
Once in place it seemed to calm down. I can imagine it thought lying on the roof in the sun was preferable to being manhandled and thrown around like a sack of potatoes. It probably wished it had a margarita and a good book to relax with.
Once a few more people were shoehorned into the bus, with their luggage, we prepared to set off again. I braced myself; it seemed to me that being strapped to the roof of a bus going 120 km per hour wasn’t exactly what the goat had expected after it’s brief minutes of peaceful solitude.
Sure enough, as we set off down the road, a wail of surprise drifted in through the open windows. I put myself in the goat’s position. Whither the margarita? Why are my ears suddenly being pinned to the back of my head by this insane wind? Hey! Why is no-one listening to me? Hey!
The rest of the journey was punctuated at regular intervals by increasingly pathetic brays of complaint from the roof. I returned to my drugged doze, and dreamed of dancing goats.
