Always Use the Buddy System

Pictures are forthcoming, but there was a story I just had to tell.

My friend Shannon was supposed to go with us in the morning, but didn’t make it. So, we basically called her the whole train ride down and berated her until she agreed to come down if we’d meet her at the train station, which we did. We all had an awesome time, which was great because I don’t get to hang out with Shannon as much as I used to. She got married in August and is trying to get pregnant, so our lives don’t always cross the same paths. Anyway, she and I are old friends through dance class so it was pretty difficult to get us off the top of the bar at McFadden’s. Around 9:00 we realized that we needed to leave if we wanted to make our 9:45 train. Did anyone want to leave? Absolutely not! But I knew that once we did, we’d know we made the right decision. Anyway, the walk to McFadden’s didn’t really seem that long that afternoon, so I thought we could make it to the train station without taking a cab. Around 9:30 I realized that we might want to catch one. Of course, there were TONS of traffic so it took just as long to get to Penn Station either way. My sister and two of our friends were already at the train station getting some dinner (they got an earlier cab) so I knew where to find them when we finally got there. We all got in line and got food pretty quick (we had lunch around 3 or so, and were STARVING and drunk, not a great combination). Anyway, the minute we got our food, we all ran towards our gate, 6E. My sister, our friend Kate, myself and our friend Nikki all made it on the train first. Shortly after, Danny, Angela and Fish made it. Where was Shannon? She called me and was at Gate 16, not 6E. She tells me this as the train is leaving the station. Obviously, no one can jump off or anything, so she’s stranded. Granted, there’s an 11:45 train but that’s not helping her right now as she’s pretty much hysterical. I tried to calm her down as best I could and I also called her husband to let him know the deal. I felt terrible, as did Nikki for we were the ones that pretty much forced her to come down.

I figured she was pretty pissed at us (even though it wasn’t really anyone’s fault) so you can imagine my surprise when she called me at 2:30 to tell me she got home ok, and she didn’t sound upset or pissed off or anything! You can also imagine my surprise that I heard the phone ring. By that time I had been passed out for two hours and was feeling pretty hungover! I called her the next day and it seems that when she took off for the gate, Danny told her to go to 6E, which she misunderstood for 16. So, she feels like an ass and kept telling everyone at the train station that we weren’t the type of friends that would leave her (as everyone’s response was “your friends LEFT you?” which we didn’t… at least not on purpose), it was just a big misunderstanding. To make matters worse, she lost her cell phone that night and it’s probably being used by a drunken homeless man as we speak! To quote her “It was bad, but I had fun.” Luckily, she met a nice couple taking the same train as her home and they let her use their cell phone and took care of her crying, drunken ass. Regardless, I don’t think she regrets coming down and in a week or so I’ll bet we can laugh about Shannon’s drunken night in NYC. But I’ll give it some time before I make that joke.