As “Hurricane” Irene barreled her way up the East Coast, the people of New York City collectively lost their sanity. While stores were being emptied of their bottled water supply, GF and I were making plans for the weekend it was supposed to hit. We wanted to go out in rain boots and ponchos and drink hurricanes. This sounded like a fantastic plan until we realized that the entire subway system was completely shutting down and mandatory evacuations were taking place. I quickly decided that rather than sit in my apartment all weekend, with no cable, no internet, and possibly no power I was going to make a run for Cuse. I booked a bus ticket for early Saturday morning, because CB was evacuating as well and a bus buddy always makes the trip less horrid. However come Friday the entire city was in disarray and I decided maybe it was wise to head out as soon as possible. But not without a last drink, which I got with some coworkers at an after work happy hour. I savored my PBR before hurrying back to my apartment. I ran in, threw some assorted items in my half-packed bag and ran back to the subway. There was an 8:45 bus and I was going for it. As soon as I entered the bus station and saw the chaos I knew this would not be happening. The line was out the door. Annoyed, I resigned myself to the fact that I had to wait in it. I watched the scene around me to pass the time. People were ruthless. A rough-looking lady tried to cut me in line. I told her to go to the end and luckily the guy behind me backed me up or else I may have been boarding the bus with a black eye. I finally was able to get a ticket for the 10:45 bus. To pass the time I decided to get as far away as possible from the bus station since I already felt like I needed to take 4 showers. I wandered Times Square miserably, passing by the Dean & Deluca where Ibanker and I had had a coffee date before I officially moved to NYC. I grabbed a slice of pizza and convinced the pizza guy to charge my phone for me behind the counter. When I finally decided to head to the line to board the bus I was greeted by a terrifying sight. The entire terminal was filled with people and my bus line went all the way to the top of the escalator. It was like the Apocalypse. People were taking everything they owned with them—I saw a guitar, packed up cardboard boxes and even heard from the people in front of me that they saw a guy with a taxidermied wolf. I stood for awhile but my line was at a standstill. It was almost 10:45 and I knew that if I kept waiting I would never make this bus, or any bus for that matter. I decided to go “investigate” towards the front. I chose a girl about my age standing with a couple women and pulled the infamous chat and cut. I felt guilty but this was alleviated when everyone gathered at the doorway anyway and the line eventually disappeared. I was getting more and more packed in and at one point I wasn't even sure if my feet were touching the ground. The ruthlessness continued. The respectable looking woman near my threatened to slap a European girl who had allegedly pushed her. Someone had been trampled in another line as I found out when the paramedics ran by. A group of Jamaican women in front of me were engaged in a very loud and heated argument. I grew pretty concerned when one of them somehow came up with a rusty bent pipe and held it behind her back. Luckily I didn't get to see how that ended as the driver had suddenly begun to check tickets. The mass surged forward. I held tightly onto my bags and squeezed to the side and then up to the front. I made it through and collapsed into a seat, exhausted. My cunning, sneakiness and stamina were key to my ticket out. I arrived in Cuse at roughly 4:30 in the morning, delirious but alive.
The rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful. But I had amenities such as electricity and potable drinking water so I was pleased. I was also delighted in the fact that I was able to drive around wearing sunglasses while the suckers in New York were swimming with the rats. As it turned out the “hurricane” that hit New York was a strong thunderstorm. This really meant that GF and I would not be rafting down the Bowery, even if we had decided to ride out the storm.
After sleeping for roughly half the day, after my early morning arrival, I accompanied my mother to a family bbq, where I drank lots of coffee in preparation for that night's outing. Out downtown, of course, where there were no hurricanes to be found (neither the drink nor the storm). I went with Hassy, eventually meeting up with Mairey, and made the rounds. Despite all the water being discussed, I was dehydrated from the previous night and from the large amount of coffee I had drank. So I got much too drunk. Apparently one of Mairey's guy friends came up to me at some point in the night and offered to buy me a drink. I copped an attitude and rudely declined. I have no memory of this. I also met up with Judgers, which I do remember, and we caught up for a bit. I texted a picture of us to both Ibanker and Yahtzee (guess which one didn't respond), along with a picture of the paraphernalia from the Balkan European country that Judgers very randomly still had in her purse. That's the thing about Cuse—you never know who you will run into. I had been texting with Summer Boo, who was also downtown, and we were attempting to meet up. Now Summer Boo, is one from the distant past. We dated the summer in between my junior and senior year of college, though never putting a title on it. When we both returned to our respective schools, he basically stopped speaking to me, which caused me to be irrationally angry. This reached its peak when for my birthday he had mailed me a flip cup poster, no note, no explanation, just a poster a college freshman would hang in their frat house. This put me over the edge and we didn't speak for years. We had made amends the previous fall and he was even my date on New Years. We hooked up once before I left for New York and it was terribly awkward. Despite this we still texted occasionally, this night being one of those times. I dragged the girls to the bar where he was. He wasn't answering my text and I suddenly spotted him across the room, talking to a blonde girl. In my state I decided this was a blatant insult and ushered the girls out, without even considering that he may be with a group of people (he was). We ended the night, of course, at Nick's Tomato Pie but I was disillusioned when one of the gems inside did not speak to me. Not the most successful night out in Cuse, but you win some you lose some.
That was not the end of Summer Boo and I for the weekend though, no no. As a follow up to some slightly incoherent texts later that night, we arranged to hang out the next day. I decided that dinner would be appropriate, since I was hungry and Ibanker had been failing on his promises to take me to dinner. I chose the sushi place downtown, figuring everyone likes sushi. Turns out Summer Boo had never had it. He was a sport though; he randomly chose something from the menu and of course it turned out to be bright orange with tentacles sticking out of it. We made slightly awkward conversation in between chewing huge portions of sushi. After dinner I accompanied him back to his apartment where we engaged in our tradition of watching episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Pre-NYC this usually led to us making out but Summer Boo didn't make a move. This may have been because on the car ride over I brought up Ibanker and how he had been blowing me off—to the guy who just paid for my dinner. Very tacky. I didn't really mind though since even if we did get together chances are it would've been horribly awkward like the last time. No hard feelings for Summer Boo and I though, and we have still occasionally been texting.
The rest of the weekend was uneventful for a refugee and on my journey back I had CB as my bus buddy. Amazingly, the city was still standing....
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