The Last #(*$)@#(_@)$*@()#*$@**()_@!!! –Ass Christmas Eve EVER!

Note to Self: On Monday or at the first opportunity after she returns from vacation, speak to Department Supervisor and find what is the earliest possible date on which you can put in a request to take December 24, 2009 as a vacation day.



At first, I thought I had been clever enough to avoid most of the craziness. I spent the entire day on Sunday, hauling all of the gifts I had bought thus far on the Long Island Railroad, dropping them off at my mom’s and then bumming a lift to the mall so I could finish my up my shopping out there, leave everything behind, and then not have to lug ninety pounds of stuff with me in six separate containers when I raced like a maniac to get from my office (which I leave at 8pm) to catch an 8:13 train at Penn Station. Especially since I found on out on Monday that the new thing with the subway is, when it gets cold out? They don’t run the trains anymore. Seriously. When it gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, they take as many of the trains as possible and store them underground. For real. In the tunnels. Seriously. So, of course all the tunnels are full of empty, stored trains, so they can’t actually run any trains in them, plus of course the trains on the lines that are in storage aren’t running at all, so instead of having say, the N, R, W, D, B and Q lines, you have the N, D and R, all running on the R track. Oh, and of course, since there are so many trains all creeping along on one set of tracks, everything’s going at what they call “super slow speed.”

So anyway, I thought, I’m a genius! Because now all I have to carry on Wednesday is my suitcase, and my wrapping paper and stuff (because I didn’t buy any until Monday) and the cake carrier with the pie and the shopping bag with the other food items I volunteered to bring. And that would be all, you know. Just that. So, more like thirty pounds of stuff.

So last night, I was up until late baking, but I thought, it’s okay because I finished most of the cooking, so I can sleep a little late, and remember, I only have three bags to carry.

And then morning actually came.

And it turns out, my insanely noisy upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Clang-Clang McEarshatter DeHearing Impairment, did take the day off. And since if she’s physically in the apartment, there will be noise, I wound up being up an hour earlier than usual. Which turned out to be okay, because I did have quite a bit of packing and organizing to do, and it took longer than I expected. Then, just as I was going to hop into the shower, my cell phone rings. Now, nobody ever calls me on my cell phone except my mom, and certainly not first thing in the morning, so I jump out of the shower and run to get it, and I manage to find the stupid thing just in time to pick up and hear a recorded message telling me that the title insurance on my vehicle may be about to lapse. Just FYI? I don’t know how to drive, so I leave it to you decide how likely it is that the title insurance on my vehicle is, in fact, about to lapse. So anyway, rather than get back in the shower, I just dry off and get dressed. I pack my three big bags, which turn out to be heavier than I thought they would be, and just about manage to drag myself out the door a mere two minutes late. Only to find that it is pouring outside, I haven’t brought an umbrella, and even if I have, I literally don’t have a hand free to carry it in. So I walk the five blocks to the subway in the pouring rain. Halfway there I remember I don’t have any cash, but that’s okay because I recently found out the little diner at the top of the subway stairs has an ATM that only charges 99 cents, so I go in there, and I get some money, and I go down into the subway and right away I notice that there is no one in the token booth, and in fact the doors to the token booth are wide open, and four (yes, four) transit maintenance type people are applying tile adhesive to the floor of the booth. Well, actually, only one of them was actually applying the adhesive, the other three were just standing there watching.

So there’s a sign in the window of the booth saying “can’t sell Metro cards, please use the machines.” Now the problem with that is, the machines will only give a maximum of something like eight or ten dollars or something in change, I only have twenties because I just used the ATM, and I only need four dollars worth of fare. And I never put more than four dollars (sometimes six if I know I have a side trip to make) because that’s all I can afford to lose. I actually have a problem with putting twenty dollars on a card, taking two trips, then going to use the card the next day, getting an “insufficient fare” message, explaining the situation to the station attendant, and having it explained to me that it’s not possible there’s something wrong with the card, so I must have just taken eight extra subway rides overnight and simply forgotten about them. (Sometimes I wonder if that might actually be true. Like, what if I have some strange form of sleepwalking disorder where I actually get out of bed in my sleep, shower, dress, and wander the five boroughs in a somnambulist state, doing … what, I wonder? What must that life be like? Do I have friends? Would I recognize them if I saw them while I was awake? I think there may actually be a fascinating short film in this idea. Note to self.)

So anyway, I say to the guys, “I can’t use the machines, I only have a twenty. Is there someone who can sell me a card?”

So one of the guys says, just a minute and goes off to find somebody. And a few minutes later the regular booth lady comes out and asks what I need, and to her credit, she’s being very friendly and nice about it, but I explain again that I only have a twenty and I can’t use the machine. And she explains, again very nicely and sympathetically, that she has no change at all, they took all her money when they opened up the booth. And I’m like, but I don’t have any change either, and I need to get to work. And I know it wasn’t her plan, but it was a really, really stupid plan not to have a backup for. How do you make an entire terminal station off-limits for any kind of human service the day before a major holiday and then not take into account the fact that some people might not be able to use the machines? What if the machines ran out of change? What if they simply broke down? So now I’m starting to get a little annoyed. And she says, well. If you go upstairs to the diner, they might give you change, but I don’t know.

Now, I want to take a step back here. I’m a slightly disabled woman (I walk with a mild limp), clearly not a teenager. It’s freezing. It’s so bloody cold that two days ago you were afraid the trains would break if you left them out overnight. It’s POURING out!!! I’m drenched. The hair is sticking to my head, and I’m burdened down with a suitcase, a heavy shopping bag and a large cake carrier, which should suggest I’m traveling somewhere and may be on some kind of a schedule here. It’s CHRISTMAS FREAKING EVE!!! Why, then, does it take you until I’ve hauled my ass and my crap halfway back up the stairs again before you grudgingly suggest: “You could just go through the gate if you want.”

OF COURSE I COULD JUST GO THROUGH THE GATE!! But not “if I want.” I can only do it if you tell me I can, so why not make that your go-to? Why put me through six kinds of aggravation before getting around to it? Do you think this is some kind of scam I’m pulling? This is how I get rich, folks! Once I year I pack a bunch of heavy “bags” and “suitcases” (wink wink!), wait until the weather is as hideous as possible, then drag my aching, arthritic hips into the subway, having first colluded with my confederate at the MTA to schedule some minor upkeep on the station so that I won’t have the excuse of being able to purchase my fare in the usual way, and then I finagle my way into a two-dollar subway ride, FREE! I’m thinking of converting my take into krugerrands. The worst part of all this is that in addition to sending my blood pressure up a few points, it also causes me to snap and get snotty with the woman, which I freaking hate! And now, forever after, I’m gonna be that “bitch” who got snotty with her, because I didn’t take kindly to being sent out into the freezing rain to ask for change from people who clearly have signs in their front window designating their rest rooms as off-limits to non-customers. I wonder how they’ll feel about giving me change without a purchase? Hmm.

So anyway, I go through the gate and down the stairs to find that she has kept me in this run-around juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust long enough to miss my train, so I’m now more like ten minutes late.

Finally the next train leaves, we get to 59th Street, and we just sit there. And we wait and we wait and we wait. And wait and wait. And apparently we’re waiting for the express train to connect with us. So finally here it comes and I’m like, well, okay. I’ve lost so much time already I should probably get on the express. At which point the doors close and our train pulls out of the station before the express has even come to a full stop. So I go and stand in the doorway with all my crap, because I’ve lost my seat when I stood up to exit the train.

We get to 36th Street, and I get on this wet, filthy, soaking, steamy, crowded D train. I find a vacant pole to hang onto, and then this really very nice and well-meaning young man gets up to give me his seat. Except it’s the little end seat? And I hate the little end seat. I never sit in them, especially not when I’m carrying a lot of stuff. So I say, oh, no thank you, that’s okay. But he insists. And insists and insists. And I feel so bad about snapping at the subway lady that I have to sit down, because he’s really just being so nice. Fortunately, at the next stop, the doorway seat opens up, and I like the doorway seat (everyone does), so I slide over into that. Unfortunately, just as the doors are closing, some guy manages to just barely squeak his way through them and make the train, and proceeds to take up a position right next to me, blasting noise out of his headphones so loud it makes the windowpanes rattle. At one point, as we were going over the bridge, I hear this high-pitched, squeedling sound that at first I thought had to be someone’s cell phone. I mean, it just had to be! It couldn’t be coming out of this kid’s headphones. At that volume, anything of that frequency, at that pitch!? If it was so loud it was making my eyebrow twitch? There was no way that could be filtering through to me on it’s way directly into his ear canal! He’d be bleeding out the eyes!

It wasn’t a cell phone.

Meanwhile, he’s only like, 5’7, so the noise is conveniently spilling out mere inches above my ear.

Finally, at the next stop, another seat opens up so I rush to grab that one, only to find the guy standing in that doorway is doing exactly the same thing, only louder.

So I just went and stood by the connecting door at the end of the car for the rest of the ride.

You know, it’s a sad thing when you actually feel happy, and relieved, and actually kind of joyful to see the inside of your workplace.

So. Next year, I take the day off.

Also? Everybody gets gift cards.

The End.