You Broke This!

After a few months sans a bus trip, I decided to hit the road in late December. Destination: the big Apple. Transportation: Chinatown wagon.

Despite severe snow warnings, I packed my things and hopped on a Friday afternoon bus to NYC. The driver was a native English speaker, a pleasant holiday surprise. I smiled and walked down the aisle, hauling my backpack and purse behind me. After a very unfortunate Greyhound incident circa 2005 in which my bags were placed on a bus headed to Salt Lake City, I have since kept all belongings on or around my person when traveling.

As is the case with every bus trip I take, I took a moment to scan the rows for potential boyfriends. I found no such gentlemen who fit the bill, and was forced to sit next to a man who had trouble understanding basic American physical boundaries. He also appeared to be doing some sort of physical therapy, his legs strapped inside a rubber band contraption that would expand and contract against my thighs.

I decided to take a quick nap while my seat mate went spread Eagle. I woke up about half an hour later, unsure of my surroundings. I didn’t see a trio of homeless men on a bench with “the City that Reads” etchings covered in bird shit, so I knew we weren’t in Baltimore. I then became very alarmed as I realized we were driving around Annapolis. The water was beautiful, but this was not right.

An hour later, yet to see a highway, we were parading down the quaint main streets of Wilmington Delaware, population 7. This, too, was not right.

After several additional hours touring America’s Small Towns, we were finally approaching the city. The driver, however, had one more surprise in store for us: a one hour, complimentary tour of Jersey city.

“WHERE THE F*^K are we!” a man yelled. Sensing a bus on the brink of a riot, I searched for a pen and notebook. The disabled man next to me was getting increasingly annoyed and began talking on the phone to a family member. “We’re going to be late. This driver is taking us through f@#&@& @ Kansas!”

There is indeed no place like home, and I was delighted to finally arrive in NYC a mere six hours after departure. On the bright side, the Mormons weren’t going to get my bags. Not this time.
Stepping off the bus with what I believed to be one to two drops of pee collecting in my leggings, I had to look for a bathroom ASAP. The intense cold did not help matters, and I realized the grave error in wardrobe judgment I had made, dress shoes and leggings be damned.
I eventually found a bathroom in Penn Station, pausing to note the “no bathing” sign that greeted me at the door. Apparently they had heard about my incident in the Boston train station earlier that year.

Unfortunately, I could not fit into the stall with my backpack and had to wait for Bridget to arrive. This seemed incredibly discriminatory to old ladies with massive hunchbacks, but I had no time to concern myself with human rights issues.

Bridget arrived a few minutes later and we headed to a Southern eatery for dinner. I have always enjoyed corn and took immense pleasure in a delicacy known as the corn fritter, cousin of corn bread and friend to all – except diabetics. I felt approximately 52 pounds heavier after the meal, but enjoyed the experience nevertheless.

The night continued with a trip to a karaoke establishment akin in appearance to a Chinatown brothel slash cocaine den. The owners clearly put more effort into the interior and made my karaoke experience one to remember, despite the fact that I refused to sing and played a weak tambourine.

We had to haul ass a few hours later to catch the final train to Bridget’s town on Long Island and while I couldn’t smell it, I was fairly certain one or more of my toes were now bleeding. While examining each of my toenails to pin point where said blood had originated, the LIRR announced there would be no more trains to Babylon for the night. At 2:30 am, our only option was to take a one hour subway ride 20 stops to Jamaica. Once in Jamaica, I asked Bridget if we could run across the street to the fried chicken establishment so I could change into pants. I was then told, in kinder words, that doing so would result in an inevitable rape/murder combo.

Instead, I was forced to put on sweatpants over my leggings on the train platform. I am told several people were taken aback by this gesture, but c’est la vie.

After another train ride and a cab, we arrived at Bridget’s house at the ripe hour of 5 am.

Originally scheduled to meet our friends in the city the following morning, we woke up to a street full of snow. Despite my disappointment that the reunion was a bust, the idea of being snowed in with Bridget’s family was oddly appealing.

Not to be disappointed, that afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Bridget’s father insist on snow plowing the neighbor’s driveway, who repeatedly asked him to stop doing so. Ready for a bowl of popcorn and a box of Entemann’s, I watched as the man waved broken pieces of plastic in the air and shouted, “You broke this!” Bridget’s father continued to plow over more broken bits while yelling, “was it expensive?” Unphased by the entire ordeal, he entered the house shortly thereafter, announcing that “McStuds” was in the building. No one could argue with that.

The rest of the day was spent shoveling, eating and playing a particularly competitive round of snow basketball, during which time I may have cracked my left knee cap. After tasting what I thought to be blood in my mouth, we called it quits and spent the rest of the evening inside.

The following day all the buses were cancelled and I was snowed in with the McElroys for one more evening. Sitting around as Bridget’s grandfather ate a tub of Farina and her parrot recovered from a drunken episode linked to a fermented pomegranate, the weekend had turned into something quite different.

It turned into a good story.