Worked some more on the Amherst script for Peter. This was facilitated by my quick recovery from whatever malaise had plagued me yesterday. It's fortunate that my condition improved so rapidly, because riding to Chicago on the Greyhound was bad enough on its own merits. But first, something must be said about Best Steak & Gyro.

I have been telling all my CWRU friends about this great 24-hour hangout and eatery. Many new BS&G devotees have thus professed their heartfelt respect for the quality and value of the food, and the driven insanity of Crazy Taxi. Tonight, my pro bono efforts were thwarted. You see, Best Steak & Gyro has just instituted Expensive Hours — 10PM-6AM — precisely when a bunch of hungry college students would want to go there. Not only that, but the flavor of our meals this eve contained Eau de Windex. It was a bad time all around, and Vic, Gabe, Hank, and I were all very unhappy that this potentially perfect place has powerfully priced away a potent posse of perpetual patrons.

It pains me to write this, but I feel compelled: when it is late at night, and you desire an edible respite from your studies, Best Steak & Gyro is no longer the Best place to go. I apologize to all those whom I may have misled with my overzealous evangelism. I am currently researching alternatives. You now have little reason to believe my eventual findings, but my quest is fueled by an unsquelchable guilt. I search in order to momentarily ease the flattening moral weight of my remorse.

Vic delivered Gabe and me to the Greyhound station, where we boarded the bus for Chicago shortly past midnight. The ride was terrific. It is inherently impossible, for simple physical reasons, to get meaningful sleep on a bus. Compounding this injury, two men sitting behind us spoke loudly and frequently. The primary offender sat two seats back, across the aisle, and filled every last molecule of Midwestern air with a vertiginous ensemble of recklessly connected and oft-repeated insults. And he was insulting us. To make this point clear, he walked up to our seat early in the ride and tapped my shoulder while spewing forth. This guy was like a bad comedian, trying to pad out 45 seconds of material (printable excerpts include “honkies”, “dogs”, and “pieces of garbage”) into a complete routine. I spent at least half an hour attempting to divine the pattern behind the repetition, to no avail.

The other guy contributing to the ruckus, who sat directly behind us, mainly tried to get the main guy to shut up. “Man, you crazy!” he started. “Go to sleep!” After some more thought (which I'd have done myself if I hadn't been getting verbally assaulted in a mathematically interesting way), he hazarded a guess: “I know what your problem is. You got Tourette's. Take your medicine!” Gabe and I hoped that this explanation of the Mad Insulter's behavior was correct. We didn't take the insults too seriously, but it was nonetheless unnerving. Beauty rest did not occur en route to Chicago.

But we got there.

But when we did, it was 5:30 AM.