So today took a hard left turn into suck.
For Christmas, Heather very generously and unexpectedly bought a gift card for Telecharge, which I decided to put towards a Broadway show. Specifically Waiting for Godot, starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, which is running between now and then and end of March and is supposed to be very good. I bought a ticket several weeks ago, and had decided upon tonight. I had my ticket in hand, was traveling light, and eager to see the play.
And then it snowed.
I knew the snow was coming since at least yesterday, but I thought it would start later than it did, and I hoped it wouldn’t be so bad. Then it just kept falling, and the wind picked up, and it got a little difficult and messy to walk outside our office, and then our announced that it was closing early, letting everyone go home if they wanted by 3:30. The MTA was recommending that people not stay in the city if they could help it; if you were traveling on the Long Island Railroad, you were encouraged to do so before the weather got worse and they started suspending service.
I didn’t much feel like getting stuck in Manhattan overnight, getting out of the play around…well, around now, actually, between 9 and 10 o’clock, only to discover that the trains home had stopped. Was I supposed to try and get an overpriced hotel room then? Find someplace open late at night to buy clothes so I’d at least have some clean underwear the next morning? I hated doing it, but I decided, better safe than sorry, and I headed home.
The commute wasn’t all that bad, hardly bad at all, actually. I’ve had better, but I’ve certainly had much worse. It’s still snowing, and they did suspend some service after 8 o’clock, reporting delays on the lines that are still running. But honestly, I don’t know if I made the right decision. I may never really know. It was a judgement call. I’m sorry it lost me the show — and much more the opportunity to make use of the thoughtful gift — but it seemed like the best bad decision to make at the time.
And I have actually seen Patrick Stewart on Broadway once before, so it’s not all bad. (I thought that show was kind of lousy, but I don’t think he or his co-star there were to blame.) There will be other shows and other opportunities and better decisions to be made.
It’s funny, any other day all of this wouldn’t have been so terrible. In fact, it would just be the fun story of how I got to leave work an hour early, which is pretty good, since my hands were starting to cramp up from typing up my conference notes all day. (Eight hours and ten sessions led to a lot of notes.)
I don’t know what the weather or commute will be like tomorrow. At my boss’ recommendation, we all took our computers home with us in case it’s too difficult to get in. Of course, I had to borrow a bag from her having left mine at home. I’d decided not to bring it with me today, because, see, I was going to the theater…
Oh well. Best laid plans and all that. It’s disappointing, but that’s okay.
Definitely a shame, though at least this way you were out less money than if you’d not had the gift card…right? Short of having a go bag at work for being stranded, I don’t know what else you could have done, and it’s almost certain that if you had stayed, there would have been twelve feet of snow by the time you came out of the theatre. It just works like that.