James, Meghan and I went and saw “Young Frankenstein” at the Opera House in Boston tonight. This post is not about that (because, frankly, it was so awful it doesn’t warrant a post). This post is about the adventure home. An adventure that will hereby be known as “The T Fire Incident”. Here is my story, told through narrative, tweets and TwitPics. If this were made into a play, it’d be lightyears better than the dreck I saw tonight.
As we leave the Opera House and approach the Downtown Crossing T station, we see a big ole fire truck, with all sorts of firefighters scurrying around.
Methinks this isn’t a good thing at Downtown Crossing. http://twitpic.com/1jirmf
Realizing that we obviously weren’t going to be getting on the T here, we walk towards South Station. Here we pass a lady laying on the sidewalk spitting up, with EMTs running to her aid. That was not so awesome. We get to the next corner, and decide to be nosy… but the smoke pouring from the entryways were irritating our eyes and throats, so we continued on. We arrive at South Station and are told that shuttle buses will take us to the next stop. We wait with people who look to have been waiting for a while… and when it became clear we would be waiting there a long, long time, James and I convince Meghan to walk to the next station, which, according to my phone, is a 15 minute walk.
Walking through South Boston with @jamesoleary87 and the bitchy (but loved) @mlmadore because the T is on fire. Adventure!
As we walk, we are passed by one VERY full bus. One. In the 20 minutes or so it took us to walk (it lied about the 15 mins), one bus went by. So, yeah, walking was a good plan. Plus, we had good times making fun of South Boston.
This is creepy. @jamesoleary87 is scared.http://twitpic.com/1jj2zs
We get to the next station, Broadway, pay our fare, go down to the platform, and wait for the train. The double checked with the friendly transit policeman that this was the way to get home, he said yes, we were happy. About 15 minutes go by, and a train pulls up. They announce it as the Ashmont train (not our train, unfortunately). People get on, doors close…. and it doesn’t move. After a few more minutes, the doors open, and the conductor starts shouting at people to get off the train, it’s out of service. They will be busing the riders to JFK/UMass, the next station. As you can imagine, the loads of people that were just bused to Broadway and now must wait for and get on another bus are THRILLED.
The scene at Broadway… which is apparently now closed as well. #mbtafail http://twitpic.com/1jj9a3
At least 15 minutes go by as we wait. We joke, we laugh, we make fun of people, we laugh with people. What more can you do? This is a situation out of your control, out of the control of the police transit handling the crowd, all of that. I want to tell this to the people FLIPPING OUT, but decide it best to not.
I kind of want to start a #MBTA sing-along. Kumbayah? Lean on Me? Ooo, The Wheels on the Bus! That one seems appropriate. #mbtafail
A bus finally arrives, and the people predictably push and shove to get on it. Because that is scientifically proven to make lines move faster and more efficiently. Fortunately, we get on the bus, and start off towards JFK/UMass. We arrive there to find that we have to pay our fare again. Thanks, MBTA!
Now at JFK/UMass. I have no need to be up early in the morning, so I’m just along for the ride. Boo #MBTA, but no harm to me.
The remainder of the ride is as expected. The T eventually arrives at JFK, we ride to Quincy, we get in our cars and go home. I can’t speak for James and Meghan (all separate cars, mind you - screw you, environment!), but my ride home was uneventful. I have no tweet for this, as it was obviously untweetworthy, so I’ll leave you with this humorous tweet I re-tweeted.
Hilarious, true or not. RT @universalhub: Blue Line was feeling left out, so #mbta stopping service at Aquarium.
Good times. There you have it: The T Fire Incident.
