My Epic Journey From New Paltz to Boston (After a Very Lovely Weekend at Home)
Dear Friends,
Even though I barely have the energy to keep my eyelids open, I'm going to tell you both the story of how I got home today like this because I will certainly not have the energy to discuss it thrice tomorrow.
I wake up at the ungodly hour of 730, comforted by the thought of sleeping in the car. I lie in the backseat, using my purse as a pillow and I swear the only thing that happened when I closed my eyes was me thinking "I am so squishing my bagel right now" and then Ilan was shaking me saying we were in NYC.
(My bagel was indeed squished.)
I spend an absurd amount of time in Borders reading a stack of magazines for free and drinking a cup of coffee that made my tummy hurt. Then this guy who took his job very seriously was giving me too many stinkeyes so I left.
I spent the rest of the day just wandering around, down from Penn Station through Chelsea and ending up in Union Square. I don't know how it happened, but apparently the 3 extra books I brought home with me just pushed the weight of my bag over the edge and I could barely lift it. I was bent pretty much at a 90 degree angle at the side but somehow managed to keep trudging along, aimlessly looking through stores (preferably ones that had shopping carts because then I could wheel around my bag instead of carrying it, even though I had no intentions of buying anything) and wishing I could find some place indoors where it would magically be appropriate to nap.
I hang around Starbucks for an ungodly amount of time drinking tea that also makes my tummy hurt until I feel it is time to go to Chinatown. I make a stop at Pearl to get a sketchbook for my senior thesis, which was probably the highlight of my day. But what was not the highlight of my day was when I was walking into Pearl past a fighting match that at the exact moment I passed by turned into a fist fight and I caught a flying elbow to the face, so that was fun. The funny thing was that it was this guy yelling at this other guy for hitting his sister but they didn't seem to care that they hit me.
Anyway, after that I start what I thought would be a simple quest of getting something good and cheap to eat in Chinatown. I knew places that took credit cards were scarce, but I figured I'd find something soon. I was so wrong. I wove in and out of every freakin restaurant asking if they accepted credit cards and if they did, if they had a minimum but the few who did had a $20 minimum and that's just silly. At this point I am so weak and tired from schleping around all day and my heart is hurting. It's also starting to get a little close to when I'd like to be at the bus stop. When I'm about to give up hope, I stumble into a Vietnamese restaurant with a $10 minimum and I don't like Vietnamese food and didn't want to spend that much but I was desperate.
With food in hand I make my way to the bus station. I'm exactly a half hour early and there's only a few other people waiting so I feel good about things until the Chinese man behind the counter politely informs me that my ticket is for 8 pm tomorrow evening. This is when I start crying in front of the Chinese man behind the counter. He tells me there's still room on the one today but I have to pay a $15 fee, which is stupid, especially since until that point my entire trip was only costing me $14. I didn't know what else to do so i paid it and then stood right in front of the bus sulking but at least knowing I'd get my choice of seat again because I was first in line.
The good news is that I got my choice of seat and that I finally did get my own row this time but that's where the good news ends. I'm pretty certain that our driver wasn't actually a driver, but just some random Asian off the street who thought it might be fun to drive a bus for the day. The first sign of this was that he pulled away from the sidewalk with the door still open and two passengers still standing in that little stairwell by the door.
But before I describe the busdriver to the fullest extent, I have to tell you about how my Vietnamese food was awful and smelled like cat food and gave me a tummyache and I threw it up at the rest stop. Also, my light didn't work again so I couldn't read again and I was in that annoying state where even though I was completely exhausted I couldn't fall asleep.
But back to the driver. It seems that he was under the impression that because he was driving a bus that meant that no cars were allowed to drive anywhere in the vicinity of his bus. This is a problem when you're still in Manhattan. let's just say that there was perhaps two precious minutes' worth of time where he wasn't honking the horn. I thought this was just typical Manhattan road rage, but it continued on the highway, where if a car either drove past him on either side of the bus or was less than half a mile ahead of him, he'd flash his lights manically at them. I turned it into a game and tried guessing which cars would provoke him but soon realized there wasn't really any logic to who was pissing him off.
Then there were two times when we came way too close to getting into an accident. The first was when we were merging onto a new highway and there was a dividing strip of raised pavement separating the merging lane from the highway. He seemed to think that buses were powerful enough to completely disregard this obvious obstacle and proceeded to completely run over it. This was right after the rest stop, so a lot of peoples' drinks spilled in their laps (not mine). Then, the other was shockingly not his fault. I was in the front row passenger side so I saw everything. A van up ahead completely lost control of itself for apparently no reason whatsoever and went spinning across all the lanes and finally came to a stop pointing sideways into our lane but our driver didn't really care to slow down or anything and abruptly jerked the bus over at the VERY VERY last minute. We were literally inches away from plowing into the side of this van and I have no idea how it didn't cause a disastrous pileup or that we didn't crash into anyone veering out of the way. The funny thing is, i don't think any of the other passengers saw the van spinning out of control and just felt the bus basically almost topple over, but no one seemed to be very alarmed at this because they probably just thought it was another one of this crazy drivers' shenanigans.
Lastly, for the last half hour of the trip, he had this little clicky flashlight that he kept clicking on and off to look at his watch literally every minute on the minute. And sometimes he did it twice in a row, you know, just to make sure that the time was still a minute later than the last time he checked it. I tend to get really bothered by repetitive actions, but what really drove me over the edge (besides it being at the end of an already exasperating day) was the noise, which was exactly like someone clicking one of those pens over and over, only in slow motion and with a stupid sense of purpose which made it a million times worse. And if you're wondering why I didn't just try to cover it up with music, it's because my Ipod's battery had died, along with my phone's. So all i could do was sit and watch the driver being certifiably insane. I was also concerned about him staring at his watch so much instead of the road, judging from the past 3 hours' worth of driving samples and all.
Another piece of good news is that we got to Boston on the earliest side of the estimated travel time, so I had plenty of time to catch the T. However, the people who occupy South Station after midnight on a weekday are a certain brand of people that one tends to have even less patience for after midnight on a weekday. For example, this crazy homeless woman was convinced I was her friend Penelope and followed me all the way through the station yelling "PENELOPE! PENELOPE!" It was harmless, really, but no one likes to be followed by a crazy person who thinks they know you. Then, finally, I was sitting on a bench waiting for the train when a guy sits at the other end of it. After a minute I start to sense that something's strange. When I steal a glance, I see that the man is now furiously masturbating.
Basically, the summary of my day is the image of me silently getting up and slowly walking away from a man masturbating in public to the other end of the platform, the sound of my duffel bag dragging behind me echoing in the empty train station.
Yours truly,
Celeste
Even though I barely have the energy to keep my eyelids open, I'm going to tell you both the story of how I got home today like this because I will certainly not have the energy to discuss it thrice tomorrow.
I wake up at the ungodly hour of 730, comforted by the thought of sleeping in the car. I lie in the backseat, using my purse as a pillow and I swear the only thing that happened when I closed my eyes was me thinking "I am so squishing my bagel right now" and then Ilan was shaking me saying we were in NYC.
(My bagel was indeed squished.)
I spend an absurd amount of time in Borders reading a stack of magazines for free and drinking a cup of coffee that made my tummy hurt. Then this guy who took his job very seriously was giving me too many stinkeyes so I left.
I spent the rest of the day just wandering around, down from Penn Station through Chelsea and ending up in Union Square. I don't know how it happened, but apparently the 3 extra books I brought home with me just pushed the weight of my bag over the edge and I could barely lift it. I was bent pretty much at a 90 degree angle at the side but somehow managed to keep trudging along, aimlessly looking through stores (preferably ones that had shopping carts because then I could wheel around my bag instead of carrying it, even though I had no intentions of buying anything) and wishing I could find some place indoors where it would magically be appropriate to nap.
I hang around Starbucks for an ungodly amount of time drinking tea that also makes my tummy hurt until I feel it is time to go to Chinatown. I make a stop at Pearl to get a sketchbook for my senior thesis, which was probably the highlight of my day. But what was not the highlight of my day was when I was walking into Pearl past a fighting match that at the exact moment I passed by turned into a fist fight and I caught a flying elbow to the face, so that was fun. The funny thing was that it was this guy yelling at this other guy for hitting his sister but they didn't seem to care that they hit me.
Anyway, after that I start what I thought would be a simple quest of getting something good and cheap to eat in Chinatown. I knew places that took credit cards were scarce, but I figured I'd find something soon. I was so wrong. I wove in and out of every freakin restaurant asking if they accepted credit cards and if they did, if they had a minimum but the few who did had a $20 minimum and that's just silly. At this point I am so weak and tired from schleping around all day and my heart is hurting. It's also starting to get a little close to when I'd like to be at the bus stop. When I'm about to give up hope, I stumble into a Vietnamese restaurant with a $10 minimum and I don't like Vietnamese food and didn't want to spend that much but I was desperate.
With food in hand I make my way to the bus station. I'm exactly a half hour early and there's only a few other people waiting so I feel good about things until the Chinese man behind the counter politely informs me that my ticket is for 8 pm tomorrow evening. This is when I start crying in front of the Chinese man behind the counter. He tells me there's still room on the one today but I have to pay a $15 fee, which is stupid, especially since until that point my entire trip was only costing me $14. I didn't know what else to do so i paid it and then stood right in front of the bus sulking but at least knowing I'd get my choice of seat again because I was first in line.
The good news is that I got my choice of seat and that I finally did get my own row this time but that's where the good news ends. I'm pretty certain that our driver wasn't actually a driver, but just some random Asian off the street who thought it might be fun to drive a bus for the day. The first sign of this was that he pulled away from the sidewalk with the door still open and two passengers still standing in that little stairwell by the door.
But before I describe the busdriver to the fullest extent, I have to tell you about how my Vietnamese food was awful and smelled like cat food and gave me a tummyache and I threw it up at the rest stop. Also, my light didn't work again so I couldn't read again and I was in that annoying state where even though I was completely exhausted I couldn't fall asleep.
But back to the driver. It seems that he was under the impression that because he was driving a bus that meant that no cars were allowed to drive anywhere in the vicinity of his bus. This is a problem when you're still in Manhattan. let's just say that there was perhaps two precious minutes' worth of time where he wasn't honking the horn. I thought this was just typical Manhattan road rage, but it continued on the highway, where if a car either drove past him on either side of the bus or was less than half a mile ahead of him, he'd flash his lights manically at them. I turned it into a game and tried guessing which cars would provoke him but soon realized there wasn't really any logic to who was pissing him off.
Then there were two times when we came way too close to getting into an accident. The first was when we were merging onto a new highway and there was a dividing strip of raised pavement separating the merging lane from the highway. He seemed to think that buses were powerful enough to completely disregard this obvious obstacle and proceeded to completely run over it. This was right after the rest stop, so a lot of peoples' drinks spilled in their laps (not mine). Then, the other was shockingly not his fault. I was in the front row passenger side so I saw everything. A van up ahead completely lost control of itself for apparently no reason whatsoever and went spinning across all the lanes and finally came to a stop pointing sideways into our lane but our driver didn't really care to slow down or anything and abruptly jerked the bus over at the VERY VERY last minute. We were literally inches away from plowing into the side of this van and I have no idea how it didn't cause a disastrous pileup or that we didn't crash into anyone veering out of the way. The funny thing is, i don't think any of the other passengers saw the van spinning out of control and just felt the bus basically almost topple over, but no one seemed to be very alarmed at this because they probably just thought it was another one of this crazy drivers' shenanigans.
Lastly, for the last half hour of the trip, he had this little clicky flashlight that he kept clicking on and off to look at his watch literally every minute on the minute. And sometimes he did it twice in a row, you know, just to make sure that the time was still a minute later than the last time he checked it. I tend to get really bothered by repetitive actions, but what really drove me over the edge (besides it being at the end of an already exasperating day) was the noise, which was exactly like someone clicking one of those pens over and over, only in slow motion and with a stupid sense of purpose which made it a million times worse. And if you're wondering why I didn't just try to cover it up with music, it's because my Ipod's battery had died, along with my phone's. So all i could do was sit and watch the driver being certifiably insane. I was also concerned about him staring at his watch so much instead of the road, judging from the past 3 hours' worth of driving samples and all.
Another piece of good news is that we got to Boston on the earliest side of the estimated travel time, so I had plenty of time to catch the T. However, the people who occupy South Station after midnight on a weekday are a certain brand of people that one tends to have even less patience for after midnight on a weekday. For example, this crazy homeless woman was convinced I was her friend Penelope and followed me all the way through the station yelling "PENELOPE! PENELOPE!" It was harmless, really, but no one likes to be followed by a crazy person who thinks they know you. Then, finally, I was sitting on a bench waiting for the train when a guy sits at the other end of it. After a minute I start to sense that something's strange. When I steal a glance, I see that the man is now furiously masturbating.
Basically, the summary of my day is the image of me silently getting up and slowly walking away from a man masturbating in public to the other end of the platform, the sound of my duffel bag dragging behind me echoing in the empty train station.
Yours truly,
Celeste