haha, I'm going to make you all boke
I've just realised that I have the perfect story for this QOTW.

I took one summer whilst at uni and fucked off to Florida with it. Six weeks of sun, sand, booze and the most successful period of pulling I have ever experienced. Ever.

My friend and I started off in New Orleans (this was in 2001, so I didn't need to bring any wellies) and then decided to travel to Clearwater in Florida on a Greyhound bus. I'd say the trip was about 8 hours long, all in. Which wasn't too bad, really. Until we got to Mobile, Louisiana.

Then a big fat man got on. With a tshirt that he'd cut off above his gut so it wobbled about in plain view. The rest of his shirt was already dark with rancid sweat. As soon as he got on, the smell was overpowering. But that wasn't the worst thing about him, oh dearie me, no.

The worst thing was the clear plastic bag perched on top of his gut. It was half full of a greeny-brown, viscous substance. It was a colostomy bag. A half-full colostomy bag.

We were a little revolted by it, but at that point it was night, the air conditioning was on and we were far more concerned about the BO. Then, as we approached Jacksonville, at about the halfway point of our trip, the sun came up.

An interesting thing about colostomy bags is that unless changed regularly, they don't really deal with heat particularly well. All the urine and excrement and whatever else inside it starts to pong a touch. This was August. In Florida.

An interesting thing about the human nose is that it will filter out its own body smell, no matter how repellant, if it is a constant.

An interesting thing about Greyhound buses is that they make rest stops pretty frequently. They also stop to pick up more passengers.

An interesting thing about air conditioning in vehicles is that when the engine stops, so does the A/C.

The heat climbed and climbed with the sun. The stench got worse and worse. The air conditioning started to struggle to keep the temperature down. My face was starting to turn green. Everybody had gone quiet, clearly trying to control their breathing. The man got up and started to walk down the coach towards us. We realised with horror that we were sat just forward of the toilets.

He walked past and the smell was...unreal. I may have fainted. It stuck in my throat, it got in my eyes, I was retching openly along with everybody else within a two row range. It stuck to my clothes, it was in my mouth.

He didn't change the bag. He came back out with it still on him. We had to put up with it for a further three hours as the clock slowly moved towards noon. It was awful. Utterly awful.
( Kroney, Tue 27 Mar 2007, 10:23, Reply)