PORT AUTHORITY 9:45 a.m. Christmas morning — I resigned myself to a slight layover after being a mere one minute late for the morning NJ Transit bus. I sat on the floor cross legged using my jacket as a mat after wandering around the terminal with three bags in hand before realizing that — jeezus, really? — Port Authority has a severe and tragic dearth of places to sit. Camped out between a growing line of other Toms River-bound New Yorkers, all of us occasionally dodging pigeons that swooped in overhead, I noticed, without any humor, that there were more pigeons in the terminal than seating options.
Through my headphones I heard an approaching sound of faint screeching mixed with muffled thrashing. A blue-shirted authority employee rounded the corner, distastefully holding a box in hand away from his body like an infected football. I involuntarily started laughing to myself: the first thing that popped into my head was this scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. How ridiculous that is, i thought.
Except that was exactly what was happening. Continue reading
Inverted Soapbox 