How weather, timing and hunger can effect a night
My original plans for the night were to go see the fabulously fun Icewagon Flu at Stout (133 W 33rd St, NYC). But I was curious to go check out a new band that my friend Mitch told me about called The NOx Curve. They were playing at Crash Mansion (199 Bowery, NYC). I’m always up for hearing new bands and I liked what I heard on their MySpace page. So off we went.
I met Mitch and his lovely girlfriend Shana outside of the Hoboken PATH station at around 8:30. The band was scheduled to go on at 10:30. We figured this would give us enough time to grab a bit to eat in the meantime and on any other night, this would be true. So, after a quick hello, we hit the PATH train and off we went, unaware of the frustrating string of events that lie ahead.
The PATH to the F was without incident. It was a fairly nice night so I thought perhaps we’d take the F to Delancey and walk to the club. But we were feeling a little lazy and decided to transfer to the J for the couple of stops. I rarely take the J. Not only is this not a very frequent train, the signage sucks. We needed to get on the Manhattan bound train yet both sides of the station said Brooklyn.
The logic gnome in my head told me that this was a physical impossibility. The last time I looked, once in Manhattan, you can only get to Brooklyn by heading in one direction. I picked the train I thought was correct but was not entirely sure of it. This guy rockin’ some serious Brooklyn-hipster style pointed us to the other side of the platform. The three of us and my logic gnome all figured he knew what he was talking about.
While passing to the other side, one train whizzed by and we were forced to wait for the next one. I took the time to catch up with Mitch and to get Shana’s take on NYC. She is originally from Miami. She finds NYC amazing and the characters intriguing. It’s nice to get a fresh perspective on this place since my cynicism grows with each passing moment.
Once on our way I noticed we were no longer underground. Our elevation kept increasing and I could clearly see the East River below us. The gnome chimed in again, “Um … guys … I hate to say this, but we’re on the wrong train.” All I could do was laugh because any other reaction would have found me under arrest. I was starting to feel that this night was going to be a bust.
Not wanting to make any rash decisions, we all decided to soldier on and simply transfer at the next station to head back. A very polite woman on the train informed us that the next stop had a crossover. Of course her politeness was replaced by stupidity when we exited the train and realized there in fact was no crossover. Two cops told us that we should have waited one more stop. Now we needed to pay another fare.
