In Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, he relates the tale of a man convicted of regicide who is drawn, quarter, burned with hot coals and, generally, tortured to death. One of the most gruesome parts involves the quartering, in which horses drag the poor unfortunate in four directions in an attempt to pull him apart. Because the horses are inexperienced, it ends up being more painful than even the punishers had intended it to be.

I related all of that to say this: Whoever decided to show movies on long-distance bus rides should turned over to horses that are rank amateurs, who will clumsily and agonizingly tear the person limb from limb.

I took a Martz bus (Martz is a Pennsylvania-based Greyhound-knockoff) from the city to Pa. the other day, getting on the vehicle around nine in the evening. The last time I had such an unpleasant trip a boxcar was involved.

This time, I was forced to sit next to a hugely fat man who elbowed me evertime he moved and, once, knocked my glasses off. Combined with no sleep the night before, a driver who took his license test on bumper cars and the general unpleasantness always offered by bus travel, I hit high levels of irritation quite quickly. When the driver flipped on some movie about African basketball players (I kid you not) and native drum music began ringing down the aisles, I checked my bag to see if I brought a baseball bat. If I had, those TV sets would have been coming down.

It wasn’t even that bad of a movie, just absolutely out of place. Showing a film on a bus is like having the guy next to you on the subway eat fried chicken. There’s nothing wrong with it per se; it just doesn’t fit in the context. I mean, are there people who, around 10 p.m. (when the movie came on) didn’t want to either sleep or read, who really wanted to see just the beginning of a B movie before disembarking? If so, what’s wrong with those people?

I spent the three-hour trip passing in and out of consciousness, waking every time the music hit a high note, the man next to me hit me, or the driver hit a bump. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit anybody.