Der Dienstag aus der Hölle
A couple of days ago, I had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
A poorly-written recounting of it follows.
I apologize in advance for the repetitions (in particular, the awful overuse of the word "so.")
Tuesday was the day from Hell
So, I get a late start (which is nobody's fault but my own, but this fact makes everything that happens afterwards that much worse)
I'm supposed to take a bus from New York to Boston and get there by mid afternoon. By the time I leave the house, it is clear that I'll be lucky if I leave New York by mid-afternoon.
I am also supposed to mail a package to my sister Miriam in Cleveland. Said package needs to arrive by Thursday. Since I know that there is a post office at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I figure I can just send it off before I get on the bus.
After narrowly missing the ferry, and then narrowly missing the connecting train on the other end, I finally get myself on the express train to the bus terminal.
The train is very crowded, so I put my bag under the seat, so it won't be in people's way.
When I arrive at Times Square station, I quickly exit the train and shuffle down the stairs to the concourse.
Thereupon I realize that I don't have my bag anymore.
I bolt up the stairs and reach the top just in time to see the doors close. [1]
Shit!
So, I race back down the stairs, down the concourse, and make a bee-line for the information booth. I tell the attendant that I just left a red backpack on the uptown 3 train.
She gets right on the radio, talks to perhaps two people, then tells me to take the next train to 59th street where I should go speak to the attendant at the information booth.
I get back on the train, only to discover that the 3 train doesn't even stop at 59th street.
Hoping that there is some hidden logic in the Times Square information booth attendant's [2] instructions, I get off at 72nd and take the next downtown local back down to 59th street, which I had just sped by not two minutes earlier.
When I go to the information booth at 59th street and explain my situation, the attendant looks at me like I'm from Mars and unapologetically explains that the 3 train doesn't even stop there, so she has no idea what the previous attendant must have been thinking.
She then foists a large map/brochure upon me and instructs me to call the lost and found department.
I point out that of the 25 or so phone numbers listed in the brochure, none of them are for the lost and found dept.
She then looks at me like I'm from a particularly strange and provincial region of Mars.
Apparently, I'm supposed to call customer service, and they will give me the number for the lost and found department.
I make the call, explain my situation, and am promptly connected to the dispatcher for the 3 train.
He tells me that the train I left my bag on should be arriving any minute, and he'll take a look. He also tells me not to go to the Lenox Street terminal (where I will presumably have to go to pick up my bag anyway, but instead to stay put and call back in 15 minutes.
15 minutes later, I call customer service again, and ask to be connected to the dispatcher for the 3 train.
I am told to hang up and dial a particular number. When I do so, it turns out I've been given the number for the superintendent of a different train line, who isn't even in the office.
So I call customer service again.
Again, I explain my situation.
I ask to be connected to the dispatcher.
I am given yet another phone number to call.
When I call that number, I find myself talking to the lost and found department.
At this point, as I'm getting rather frustrated with the whole situation, I'm just glad that I'm describing my lost bag to someone who might conceivably be helpful. So, having explained everything to the operator in the lost and found dept, I am told that it's unlikely that my bag will turn up at all; that if it does, I won't get it back for at least a week (which is well after Thursday, when that package needs to be in Cleveland); and that my best bet is to get myself to the Lenox Street terminal ASAP (Thank you very much, Mr. Dispatcher.)
So, I get back on the local train, change over at 72nd street (again), and ride the 3 train all the way to the end, to the Lenox Street Terminal.
I walk up to the info booth and tell him I left a red backpack on the three train at Times Square.
He says, "about 45 minutes or an hour ago? Yeah, I think I saw it... Go ask at the dispatcher's booth at the other end of the platform"
So I go to the dispatcher's office and try to find someone to help me.
There I find the dipatcher I spoke to on the phone. He tells me that he looked for the bag and it wasn't there. It's probably gone, but I should call Lost and Found anyway. He then hands me a piece of paper with the number I had already dialed twenty minutes earlier.
Exhausted, I sit down at a table in the conductors' break room (which is just outside the dispatcher's office) and start to call family members to report on my status and ask what the fuck I should do.
Rebecca tells me that I really need to call Mom and let her decide what is to be done.
When I call Mom, her assistant tells me she is in a meeting, but she will be back in about 15 minutes.
It's a bit of an emergency, but it can wait until she gets back - so that's exactly what I tell the assistant.
30 minutes later, I still haven't heard from Mom.
At this point, the dispatcher comes out of his office and tells me that he's sorry he couldn't be more helpful, but that I'm really not supposed to be there in the break room, and that I should leave.
Back out on the platform, I sit down on a bench and wait for the phone to ring.
I guess I must have looked rather dejected, because one of the custodians who was walking by stopped to ask if everything was OK.
I told him I'd accidentally left my backpack on the train at times square.
"Was it red? 'cause I saw someone emptying out a red backpack over there [points] about an hour ago"
We walk over to the locker where they keep the full trash bags, and he deftly pulls out the one he's pretty sure is it.
I look inside, and lo and behold, there are my gloves.
As i look more closely, I see all of my other clothes and toiletries, and perhaps most importantly (in terms of me surviving until next week), the package for my sister.
He gives me a clean trash bag to put all my stuff in and wishes me good luck.
I call Rebecca and let her know the news.
We agree that I should get myself to the bus ASAP.
A couple of minutes later, a train pulls in and I get on.
Whereupon Mom calls.
I ask her if she's talked to Rebecca at all.
(No)
Then I tell her that a crisis has been largely averted, and...
And then I go underground and my phone cuts out.
When I get to the bus station, I call her back.
She tells me that she's talked to Rebecca, that she's glad I'm ok, and that she has to run to a meeting and will call me later.
When I call Rebecca a minute later, she gently informs me that it is very important, when leaving a message with Mom's assistant, that if the word "emergency" is used, it must be accompanied by the all-important phrase "nobody is hurt" (if applicable.)
The combination of that guilt, the fact that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day, and that I was still sort of in shock pretty much knocked me on my ass.
Nevertheless, I went to the post office and mailed the package.
At this point it was about 5:15.
I had left the house at about 11:30.
Since the bus runs every hour, I figured I could take the 6:00 and still have time to get something to eat.
So I get to the gate at about 5:40, hoping I'm early enough to get a good seat.
There are three people in line. Twenty minutes before this bus, there are typically at least thirty.
I ask what the hell is going on.
Next bus isn't until 7:00; apparently, there's no 6:00 on Tuesdays.
So I go buy a magazine, get back on line, and wait for an hour and a half (because the Boston bus never leaves on time.)
* * *
Three hours later, in Connecticut, about twenty miles from the MA border, we pull into a rest stop.
I go in, use the facilities, get a drink.
As I walk out the door, I hear the driver releasing the parking break and see the bus door closing.
I (and a couple of other passengers) start running like hell, at which point the the door re-opens and the driver comes out and gives us a dirty look.
Great, more guilt.
We finally get to South Station at about 11:20 (which, surprisingly, is pretty much on schedule.)
I get a sandwich at McDonald's and make my way to the Orange Line.
Thankfully, I make it all the way to Dad's apartment building uneventfully.
When I put the key in the door to his apartment, it won't turn.
I immediately resign myself to being well and truly fucked.
The key wasn't quite in all the way.
I go in, drop my comically large trash bag (containing little more than a change of clothes and a toothbrush), open up the sofa bed, and get under the covers.
Well, shit! By this point, I've gotten my second wind!
So I watch a few hours of TV before finally managing to go to sleep.
Not four hours later, my father - ever the creature of habit - gets up and starts getting ready for the day (which includes very loud NPR and the use of metallic utensils in the (echoic) kitchen.
At which point a new and comparatively uneventful (if rather groggy) day begins.
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[1] Thinking about it now, I see this all as perhaps a movie or a play (though not necessarily a very good one.)
In that movie, it begins in medias res with me getting off the train. But that's neither here nor there.
[2] "Times Square information booth attendant," that'd make one hell of a German word...