Friday, February 03, 2006
 | I don't live in New Jersey; I just sleep there. I was not scheduled to work until 4:00 this afternoon. On the agenda for the morning before work: Pick up my shit at the Amtrak station in Newark. Mapquest told me it was approximately 12 miles and about 25 minutes from my apartment. Sure the directions involved a few complicated steps like merging onto three different highways, but I was up to the task. I put half a tank of gas in my little plum Saturn, got a 20 oz. iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts, popped one of the "Welcome to NY" mixes Joe made me into the cd player, and headed down the road about 10:30 to give myself plenty of time. Surprisingly enough, the mapquest directions got me to Newark without a single problem. Once I got there, however, there before me lay this gigantic campus of "Newark Pennsylvania Station" that was most definitely not user-friendly. Nowhere in this maze of one-ways that intersected diagonally was there any indication of where one would drive up to pick up a parcel. After circling twice, I finally pulled up to a curb that had signs saying explicitly, "No Parking - Tow Zone" - despite my recent luck with tow zones - put on my hazard lights, and ran inside to the information desk. The man, of course with a barely decipherable foreign accent, points me to walk this way, take a right here, and a left there to go pick up my parcel. I then explain to him that I need to know where to park my car that is near the parcel pick-up area. He starts pointing me across the street in another direction. Because he clearly can't put two and two together, I then explain that I need to park somewhere NEAR the parcel pick-up so it can be loaded into my car. At this point some very intimidatingly large man standing next to the information booth (who I don't know whether he worked there or just felt like being a really big asshole) starts SHOUTING at me that I can't park in front of the station because I'll get towed. Refusing to be intimidated, I shout "I REALIZE that!" up at him, and then once again reiterate that the signs are not clear outside and I don't know where the hell to park my freaking car so I can pick up my package. The really big asshole asks me where I am parked right now. Illegally, ok? Illegally. THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING FOR HELP. Barely decipherable foreign accent informational man then gives me some vague directions about pulling out of the station, making a right, and then looping around. Fine. Whatever. I'll probably be towed by the time I get out there anyway. But fortunately I am not towed, so I follow the vague directions and find myself at a parking garage. I pull up and ask the man in the booth if this garage pays by the hour. Ohhhh of course not. This is a monthly garage for people who have passes. He gives me slightly less vague directions toward a parking lot that pays by the hour. Of course, I have already pulled into his lot and there's no way to go through without a pass, so he has to hold up traffic and direct me as I back out. At least he was nice about it. I finally find the pay-by-the-hour lot. I pull up, get my ticket, and drive into the lot which, I should mention, has no marked parking spots. The cars are all over the place like some blindfolded adolescents had parked them. I roll down the window and ask a parking attendant where I should park. He responds very quickly in a COMPLETELY indecipherable accent as he points in a very ambiguous direction. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" I ask. Indecipherable jibberish repeated. Arm still pointing in ambiguous direction. "I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying. You want me to park where?" Indecipherable jibberish gets very heated and arm begins to flail. I can feel the PMS emotions boiling inside of me. "Look, I need you to be patient with me." ... the nicest way I could tell him to go fuck off. The man then throws his arms up in the air and storms off. Another parking attendant comes over to me with a sympathetic smile on his face who then points me into a spot. He asks me if I'm okay because by the time the car is put in park, my head has been dramatically thrown onto the steering wheel as I begin to bawl. I can't even get the words out about how much time I'll need to leave my car there, so he patiently instructs me to leave the keys in the ignition and then leaves me to pull myself together. I make it into the station, find my parcel with no problem, and a very nice man helps me take it out to my car. When I go to the booth to pay and the indecipherable accent parking attendant sees it's me he actually TURNS AND STORMS OFF. Patient parking attendant man sees this and then runs to the booth to help me. He again asks if I'm doing okay. I reply yes, but I am just shocked about how rude people are in this town. He nods his head empathetically and glances in the direction of indecipherable accent man and says, "Yes I know how that is." SOOOO adventure over, right? Hardly. It hadn't occurred to me before I left this morning that I should also get directions off of mapquest BACK to my house from the train station. In most places in the world, you can simply reverse the directions you took to get there, right? Right. In NORMAL places anyway. It took me an hour to get home. I had to ask two people just in Newark how to get to the interstate because it wasn't marked how to get back onto it going east. They both gave me inaccurate directions but after about twenty minutes I ended up finding it myself. Then I couldn't find the exit from the interstate to get onto the highway leading back to North Bergen that wouldn't take me through the Lincoln Tunnel. I had to ask two different toll booth attendants who were both fairly nice and actually gave accurate directions, but not without me getting honked at by the impatient assholes in their cars behind me. So.... 3 hours, 35 miles, 20 ounces of coffee, 8 dollars in parking, 2.50 in tolls, 2 dollars in tips, a chunk of gas and a slew of tears later, I have my gray rubbermaid tub that I sent via Amtrak for reasons of "convenience". |
drained 
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