FML

The World's Most Desolate Railway Station

Allow me to recount, if you may, how I spent the afternoon of the 15th of September 2009. In very brief terms, because I have precious little time and too many pages of incomprehensible Homeric text to devour, I basically took the wrong bus to practice today. So instead of ending up at the IM fields, I found myself half an hour later in Derby, Connecticut, a place 10 miles east of New Haven a.k.a. sketchy place in the middle of nowhere. So hiking to a nearby gas station, the nice people there cautioned me against taking the taxi because cab drivers that part of town were, apparently, immoral penny-pinchers who will bring you on a joyride of greater New England, ringing up an insane cab fare before delivering you safely to your destination. Thinking I could save myself a bit of money, I heeded the gas station owner’s advice, called a cab and took a $10 taxi ride to “Derby Train Station” where apparently the bus will take me to Union Bus Station in Downtown New Haven for $1.25.

Big mistake. I found out shortly after arriving at Derby Train Station that it was no ordinary train station. It is so old, desolate and rundown that trains rarely passage through there anymore. I was virtually in the middle of nowhere. With Annie Le on my mind, I sat by the kerb and rang up people (thank you Wanky and Linda for picking up!!!!). I finally drummed up enough courage to enter the roadside diner populated with Hells’ Angels lookalikes in leather vests and bandannas to ask for directions. Someone threw me a map with a voluminous listing of all the bus services in Connecticut which I could not understand (I was brought up to comprehend Singapore’s comparatively simplistic bus routes after all) and someone kindly offered me the number of a taxi company. I tried the Yale Mini-bus and was told that Derby was too far out for them to come pick me up and that the Dean would have to be informed if I insisted on them coming out. By then, I felt like I was truly living out an absurdist play, albeit an infinitely more nerve-wracking, and potentially life-endangering one. So I decided that if $30 could ensure I get back onto Old Campus in one piece, I’d pay in a heartbeat. Which I did.

Moral of the story: God must hate me.

Where the f*** am I?

Exciting Tuesday afternoons FTW.