I rode the Huffington Post Sanity bus

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:01:00 +0000

I woke up wanting to smash my iPod. It was 3:50 a.m. and the iPod was playing an ersatz marimba, the first of the four alarms I set to ensure I made it to the far side of Queens to catch the Huffington Post-sponsored bus to the Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C.

Staring at my bleary reflection in the mirror, it was hard to remember why I had signed up for this. My friend Bobby had bailed on the trip the night before. Part of my Halloween costume – "regrettable tattoos" drawn on in Sharpie – had smeared onto my chin. And while the 99-cent pizza place across the street had a line down the block, there was nowhere to get coffee.

This sucks, I thought.

It all began, of course, when Arianna Huffington appeared on "The Daily Show" last month and announced, apparently on impulse, that the Huffington Post was giving away free rides to the Comedy Central-sponsored rally. "Just come to the Huffingtonne Post, 560 Broadway in SoHo. The bahss will be there. We'll take you with us," she said regally, beckoning to the audience. "We have as many bahsses as there are people to fill them." HuffPo staff heard about the gesture at approximately the same time as the rest of us. ("Arianna's $250K Bus to Jon Stewart Rally a 'Shock' at HuffPo HQ," read a headline at The Wrap.)

Salon.com > Adrianne Jeffries

I rode the Huffington Post Sanity bus