As I’m writing this, we’re passing the Prudential Center and Hancock Tower. In a couple minutes, we’ll be bidding adieu to Fenway Park to the left. I’m on a megabus back to New York City after a weekend in Boston. This was my first time back in 2-3 months, and so much has changed already.
- The Millennial Tower, which was an inconvenient – and seemingly perpetual -- ditch in the middle of Downtown Crossing when I lived in Back Bay, is now nearly complete. (My boyfriend jokes that it’s called the Millennial Tower, because it took an entire millennium to build.)
- Where the gutted building that formerly known as Filenes Basement once sat, there is an enormous Primark store, a behemoth of four stories. I wonder what this means for the H&M at DTX.
- There is active construction in front of the Prudential Center (aka “the Pru,” or for the intoxicated speech-slurring college students of the area, “the Peru”). It’s supposed to be new office/retail space, which makes me *wicked* sad, because I liked the openness of the area around the Pru.
Anyway, I was in a really sour mood today. Something came up at home, and I had to be home earlier than my reserved 5pm ticket would allow. So we made plans to catch the 3pm bus, which would arrive in New York at around 8pm.
We went to the megabus counter to pay the change to the 3pm, but as the tickets were sold out, we had to wait until all the reserved seats for the bus were accounted for before we could change tickets. There were already 3 other people waiting, and they all gestured for us to go ahead to the counter. But when we arrived the lady was quite abrupt, “Don’t you see all these people are waiting ahead of you?” I apologized and let her know that we would wait until all the reserved patrons boarded before changing tickets. After 3pm, and after the 3 people originally ahead of us got on the bus, I went up to the counter again to try to change the ticket, but the lady at the counter allowed three additional people who arrived after us get on the bus. When I asked whether we could board the bus, she said, “Sorry you’ll have to wait for the 4pm.” Then I reminded her that I was ahead of the three people she just let on the 3pm bus, and she demanded, in a rising voice, “Did I even talk to you before?” Which really infuriated me, because I know she remembered me. I had a neon pink shirt on and was sitting near the counter the whole time.
I am embarrassed to admit that I definitely cried a little bit, primarily because I was so upset by the inefficiency of the system and by not being able to get on an earlier bus despite making such a big effort to arrive at South Station ahead of schedule. I informed my boyfriend that we had the choice of either waiting 1 hour and paying up for the 4pm bus or just staying til 5pm for my original ticket.
The latter turned out to be a perfect thing to do. We walked to Faneuil Hall to get hot chocolate. There, we saw carolers and street performers, and had the chance to visit some of our old hangouts. On our way back to South Station, we passed by Dewey Square, the site of the #OccupyBoston movement where we first met (to be clear, we weren’t Occupiers – just coworkers in an office that overlooked the Occupy site). Most magically, though… we saw the first snowflakes of the season! (Now, were this New York, I might suspect that the tiny white drifts were morsels of garbage… but this is Boston so I trust that it is actually snow.)
I guess good things come to those who wait – even if they are forced to wait due to an unjust transportation boarding system!
xoxo, the closing belle
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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!
