Wednesday, November 25, 2009

It's The End Of the World As We Know It...

I just sent my first text message ever.

To TQ. Said "c u in Beacon 2nite, ps I have my cell phone".

Yep, I have joined the ranks of cell phone owners. Finally broke down & got one last month. Friends will gasp (my real estate broker friend who found my place for me once joked, "Bonnie's cell number is LUD-DITE"). I'm notorious for being the one who refuses to break down & get one of these things. For some reason I just have no desire - and in fact have some aversion - to being as constantly in touch as most people seem to need to be these days. I always laugh at the almost synchronized checking of messages that goes on around me when the B or Q train comes out of the tunnel onto the Manhattan Bridge.

Actually, it's not going to be a big life changer at all for the simple reason that I mostly don't carry it, I really only wanted it for travelling after a really truly horrible bus trip out to see TQ on the day before the 4th of July. Apparently it didn't occur to Greyhound that there might be a few more passengers than usual that weekend. Who'da thunk, eh? I haven't particularly enjoyed my new familiarity with long-distance bus travel, but it's definitely the best way to get out to where TQ is these days, so I do it, and ordinarily it's tolerable & reasonably reliable. But that trip? UGH. There we were, just waiting and waiting and waiting for hours in Philly, in the middle of the night, with no idea what time they'd find a bus for us, and a cranky jerk at the station trying to tell us that we weren't allowed to use the restrooms because he'd already cleaned them*. I was able to call TQ from the pay phone there to let him know what was up, but the last update I was able to give him was the dispatchers actuallY DID find a bus for us & we were about to board. Yeesh. Never again.

Anyways, that was the trip during which I really decided that it would be a good idea to get one of these things, so last month I trotted off to t-mobile, got a prepaid package & the 2nd cheapest cell phone they had.

Why not the cheapest? Well, being a good couscous-nibbling chardonnay-sipping east coast liberal elitist, yeah, I went for the one that was advertised as "carbon neutral". Why not?

At any rate, I used it for the Mayor's Cup, I carried it when I went to PA in Ocober, and it is going to be really nice to have today when TQ & I are meeting someplace neither of us have really been before.

Have cell phone.
Have Gorilla Coffee (Peruvian and Ethiopian both, Am's gonna go "ape"! :D).
Have train ticket (I FINALLY got smart & got that beforehand, can't wait to breeze on past those ticket queues tonight)!
Have book (just turned up yesterday, what perfect timing!)

Will travel!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

*I have to add that with that one glaring exception (who I just ignored, anyways, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go), the rest of the Greyhound staff at the Philly station was incredibly patient, professional, sympathetic to their passengers' plight & I would even say almost as frustrated as we were. Apparently the terrible handling of days when they are likely to be overloaded is due to decisions about operating procedures that are made by people on high at corporate headquarters, who of course are not the people who end up having to deal with the passengers who are stuck waiting for a bus when they were supposed to be well on their way to their final destination.

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