Creep of the Week - May 15, 1999

Image: Fatal Bus Accident Scene

Frank Bedell
"Bus Bust"

Marijuana. Grass. Pot. Cannabis. Hemp. The Evil Weed. Wacky Tabacky. Call it what you like, but you know what it is. It's been a big part of the social scene for over 30 years. Smoking pot causes one's perceptions and thought processes to alter markedly. Your mind can get narrowly focused on trivial items like cracks in the wall or the fact that Ozzie Nelson never went to work but somehow managed to pay for that nice suburban home. Stupid things become unbelievably hilarious. You get the munchies for Doritos and chocolate ice cream. Music and sex are suddenly religious experiences. The uptight become mellowed out.

Pot's not one of those nasty drugs like heroin or crack. In fact, some types of people can (and should) benefit significantly from a few tokes every once in a while:

  1. Chemotherapy patients
  2. Rock musicians
  3. Stand up comedians
  4. Nazi-worshipping high school students with AK-47s
  5. Emotionally constipated cynics like George Will
  6. Anal-retentive freaks like Martha Stewart and Felix Unger
  7. Bob Barr, Ken Starr, Jamie Farr and Bill Mahar!
Here's a list of people who should not smoke marijuana:
  1. Bus drivers with diabetes and congestive heart failure who drive little old ladies from nursing homes to gambling casino outings on Mothers Day
Alas, this advice comes a little late for Frank Bedell and 22 dead little old ladies. Frank was driving such a bus under such conditions in New Orleans when he had what's known as a profoundly bad trip. He veered across three lanes of I-610, went through a metal guard and crashed into a concrete and dirt embankment. In addition to the 22 dead, 15 more were injured, including Frank. This week, the results of Frank's urine tests revealed that he had been smoking dope within 24 hours of the accident.

And Frank has apparently inhaled before. He got fired from two different bus companies after testing positive for marijuana four times, spent two tours of duty in drug rehabilitation programs and was turned down for a job by Greyhound when he tested positive for cocaine. The spokesman for Frank's current employer, Custom Bus Charters, gave the mandatory "Nobody told us!" response when asked why they hired such a spaced out loser.

Had Frank been lucky enough to be a talented athlete like Darryl Strawberry, his boss would have patted him on the head and then sent him on a relaxing vacation in Florida with enough money to buy more drugs and solicit prostitutes. Unfortunately, Frank's skills lie in other areas, such as managing to sneak around stoned for years past a series of bus company authorities. If he ever gets out of the hospital, he will hobble directly to jail. That's not a bad place to be when you're trying to score some drugs, but the only buses he'll see from now on are the ones carrying the multitudes of lawyers into court to sue him, his family, the bus company, the gambling casino, the nursing home, the highway department, and Bill Clinton for their liability in all this.

Lessons learned? If you take drugs, learn to play the guitar. If you ride a bus, go Greyhound. If you've become really angry about this incident and feel like killing someone, take drugs.


Let me know what you think at montgome@servtech.com 

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