You can't get there on this bus...

Last week my friend from St. Bart's and I went on an adventure... a trip to New Jersey to visit our dear friend who's in a rehab center. If you know me well, you'll know the word adventure has varying connotations, depending upon the circumstances. This was one of those adventures from hell.

To begin, we were supposed to leave at 12:30 but didn't make it out of the church til 2:00. Secondly, the trip, which included a subway ride, PATH train to Newark, then city bus to Kearney was supposed to take about an hour. My train back to Brewster (from Grand Central) was to depart at 5:19. Tight, but doable. Except for just a few minor details: His directions were correct, but not quite complete. The PATH train took longer than anticipated because we went to Newark from 33rd by way of Journal Square, instead of the direct shot from the World Trade Center. Oh, and we stopped to buy a sandwich on the way because neither of us had eaten lunch. (Even though it was already now past 2:00.) Finally we arrived in Newark and spent a good fifteen minutes going the wrong way to the bus platforms. By this time I was beginning to see the writing on the wall regarding my 5:19 train to Brewster. Oh well, stuff happens.

We arrived at the bus platform with just enough change between us to make the fare as the #76 bus pulled out. No problem, we'd catch the next one in another ten minutes, it would give us time to eat our sandwiches. Three more busses with different numbers came and went and finally another 76 pulled in. We got on, and my friend asked the bus driver "This goes to Clara Moss?" (Clara Moss is the name of the rehab center.) Bus driver said "No! you're on the wrong bus. I don't go anywhere near there. You mean the hospital, right? You need to take the subway."
"It's the rehab center."
"You can't get there on this bus."
So we got off. We checked the directions. They said #76, but maybe it was the #72. We waited for that one. Once again we got on, asked the bus driver the same questions, and received the same answers.
"You can't get there on this bus. You need to take the subway."

That couldn't be right. The directions came from someone who'd already visited and she's taken the bus. Back to the terminal to find customer service. Maybe they could tell us which bus to take. The gentleman from customer service was sure of himself.
"You need to take the subway."

At this point my friend remembered his cell phone and called the lady who'd given him the directions. He was asking her all the wrong questions. At this point a nice description would be... I threw a hissy fit.
"Give me the damn phone!"
I talked to her for a few minutes and found out the name of the street the rehab center was on, cross referenced it with the map for the #76 bus and sure enough, the street was there. Paydirt!
To his credit, he did at this point call the rehab center and asked for the cross street where we should get off. Wilson. Yes!
Back to the platform. The next #76 bus was an express (because of course by now it was rush hour.) We waited and waited and waited... and at last got on the local. Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the rehab center. It was 5:00.

I got home to Brewster that night at 10:30, way past my sisters' bedtime to come fetch me at the train station. I took a cab. What luxury... he actually knew where he was going.