Bad Karma
Last night I had one of my bouts of insomnia. I decided that I wasn't going to go to work until I'd gotten at least a little bit of sleep, so at 2:30 am I emailed my boss and told her I'd be a couple of hours late.
I did eventually fall asleep. I woke up at 7 am though, and decided to get ready to go to work. The first sign that this was a bad decision came right away: I had no hot water and the stove didn't work. I called the gas company, and after being on hold for 20 minutes, I learned that gas to the buildings on my street had been shut off because a building less than two blocks away exploded Wednesday night.
After a short, cold shower, I made my way to the train, boarded without incident. About 10 minutes into the trip, the train stopped between stations. Since major renovation began on the El last year, this happens a lot. Sometimes it is so bad that 20-30 minutes are added to my commute. So I sat, unphased, between stations, waiting and waiting for the train to start moving. And then I waited some more. In fact, I listened to the entire Hucklebug podcast while sitting in that one spot.
And after what must have been 45 minutes stuck in that one spot, we learned that trains were backed up because power had gone out to the system a few hours before. About five minutes after that, the conductor told us that we weren't going anywhere fast, because part of the track was missing. The train finally did move to the next station, and why I didn't get off and take the bus I'll never know. Apparently there were even shuttle busses, but unfortunately, my conductor didn't announce that fact.
When all was said and done, a 35-40 minute commute became just over 2 hours. I live 8 miles from my office.
When I got to work all was a buzz because the train line I take to work fell victim to a suicide shortly after I exited. It was either my train, or the one after it. I guess that's when my luck sprang back.
Oddly enough, the rest of the day went rather well.
3 Comments:
god, what a nightmare. It is really funny, I was just thinking this morning about how much more reliable the transit system in Amsterdam is.
I guess given the option between a building next door exploding and someone deciding life isn't worth living, waiting 2 hrs in a train doesn't seem so bad.
And thank frickin' god you had an ipod with you. Can you imagine if that was one of the days you forgot a book or ipod?
you lived to tell this interesting story - i am grateful for that.
Hello! I'm still reading your blog, though I'm lazy and haven't commented!
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