VII. Bath Salts Geese and UFOs

About sixty-seven hours after landing in Wrocław, I mounted a bright red Polski Bus and galloped towards the promised commercial-land of Warsaw. For those of you with cars (or not in Poland), Polski Bus is the equivalent to Mega Bus essentially, except cheaper, cleaner and with free WiFi.  Also, the Polski Bus mascot is this methed-out goose instead of a British Lego man, or maybe it’s just a normal duck covered in pure white cocaine. Either way, it has to be the most demented cartoon animal I’ve ever laid eyes on. 

Since I’m incapable of reading in moving vehicles, I had a great deal of time to conjecture the potential applications of the cracked-out bird while in transit. Maybe Polski bus is secretly a drug trafficking operation, and all our baggage is currently surrounding a brick pyramid of uppers and downers and inbetweeners. (Why in the shape of a pyramid? Because drugs are expensive and often require forced labor and violence. Also because it’s the fanciest form of presenting luxury goods.)

Or maybe it’s one of those cross-marketing strategies, like when a car commercial simultaneously promotes the new James Bond flick, or a cereal mascot promotes the latest toy truck. The bird advertises for cheap transportation through eastern Europe while simultaneously endorsing inebriation. Talk about a perfect PR marriage.

Fancy things and sketchy schemes come in pyramids

Eastern Europeans + alcohol = magical memories

In the end, however, I concluded that the most likely motivation for the mascot is a matter of protection. I must admit that knowing a giant, crazy-eyed bird was staring out at our fellow commuters made me feel safer. Who the fuck would take on an angry red bus with a bath salts goose plastered across it? Nobody who isn’t already on bath salts. Other drivers will take one glance at those tweaking eyes and immediately picture their face getting pecked off. Which bites for them (pun absolutely intended), but also means that they will stay the fuck away from those of us under its protective wings.

Satisfied with this brilliant conclusion, I leaned back and began the only other activity that wouldn’t cause me to lose my lunch, or at least has a lower risk factor: people watching, namely the two men in front of me. I chose these two dudes not only because of the convenience of their proximity, but because I felt immediately drawn to their oversized t-shirts with ironic geek humor, and the family-size bag of the Polish equivalent to Cheetoes ensconced between their seats. (One of the t-shirts said “Nanotechnology is huge” in miniscule letters. I unfortunately don’t remember the other one.) For the first four hours of the bus ride, Louis Skolnickski and Gilbert Lowellski watched different episodes of the X-Files on their laptops while munching on their Czytὀwski (my spurious name for Polish Cheetoes). Why they couldn’t watch the same episodes on the same device was beyond me, but I admired their ardent commitment to some sort of methodology I couldn’t fathom, one that clearly required risible inefficiency. Because, to me, that is the definition of geek culture: the ability to convert mere recreational activity into a structured, scheduled undertaking saturated with obligation, time management, and hard work. After these guys finished their respective X-isodes, they argued over the more contentious plot points in their respective episodes: “Kanapki trudne wszystko SCULLY otwarte zabawa FBI impresja zimno pada WEREWOLF (pronounced vir-voulp) dobry PARANORMAL.” (Obviously the Polish in this conversation is likely not a direct transcription, given that I hadn’t the slightest clue as to what they were saying. This is simply what it sounded like to me. Either way, it was brilliant.) I could tell they meant business. I would’ve given anything to participate.

Is her passion for the paranormal as fiery as her flaming red locks?  I think so.

 I don’t mean this passage as a jab at sci-fi culture, geekdom or The X-Files, especially since I openly partake in all such compulsive behaviors. Sometimes I even dredge out my Magic decks (yes, as in Magic: The Gathering) and battle my friends, so I have absolutely no leverage here. I only want to convey that I loved witnessing this couple because it reminded me how geekdom truly transcends all languages and cultural barriers just as much as dance, music, or any other form of self-expression. And I think everyone’s had that moment in which they see someone else of their minority group, and feel overwhelmed with a sense of comradeship. (Can I use that word in a blog about Poland? Too late now.) You know the feeling: you’ve been so alone, carrying this identity marker all by yourself, and then you randomly spot someone transgender, or red-headed, or Sikh, or deaf, or obsessed with the sport of curling and you want to yell “Yes! You! Yes! I am one of you! I am one of you!” Well, that was the sensation that flooded me while watching The X-Files over their pudgy shoulders. I didn’t shout this, or even say it to my Scully-fantasizing duo. But I still spent the rest of my day filled with a sense of belonging in an estranged land. And for that I will be forever grateful to Gillian Anderson and the Californication dude.