How bad can one traveling experience be?

a) On my bus ride to Boston I get sat next to by a smelly high-school kid who demands to know what I’m reading, what I’m writing, where I’m going and then makes a non-sequitur “joke” about how emo he is in order to point out his self-mutilation scars.

b) Bedtime Stories is the first movie on my trip, which Smelly McPutshisthighsagainstminenomatterhowfarImoveover keepspointing out “funny” parts even though I don’t have the headphones necessary for listening in my ears.

c) I realize by the time I get to Portland that my wallet is not in my jacket. I lost my wallet. With all $81 to my name in it. Right before being away from my saftey blanket for 5 nights.

d) The second movie was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. THEN, even my attempts to find ample shit to criticize were thwarted when my headphones stopped working. And I can’t go complain that my headphones aren’t working to somebody because that would also be admitting that I wanted to watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

e) So, I get to South Station at 8pm and get on the phone with the friend who I’m staying with. She’s gonna come meet me at the subway stop so that my lack of money doesn’t hinder my ability to find my sleeping couch. I get interrupted by a phone call from another friend offering me a ride in her car so that no one has to make multiple trips on the subway. This seems like a reasonable plan so I call off the subway troupes and instead begin waiting for my friend to taxi me to my destination. Instead I get a call. This call is the call that gives credence to the joke about why Helen Keller can’t drive because my female friend describes how she can’t come pick me up because driving into the center of the city seems like, to borrow my words, a lot of work. 

While I appreciate her laziness in terms of how it speaks to the quality of her life, I don’t appreciate how unlazy it forces me to be. My backup plan is walking, so 2 1/2 hours and four phone calls from strange intersections later I finally arrive at my sleeping arrangements for the night – all because some bitch refused to defy her gender stereotype and learn how to drive. 

f) At some point during my journey from South Station to Allston, I put down my book to write down directions, and then did not pick that book back up. This was the worst part of the night. Not because I’m an intellectual snob who’s loss of a Vonnegut brings me to tears, but because my bookmark was my return ticket.

A day where I go broke, watch a fat man falling as “comedy,” get stranded in a city, and become best friends with a smelly, anime-loving cutter whose favorite movie is The Tale of Despereaux because “it’s a mouse being things that.. like… a mouse wouldn’t do,” didn’t seem that bad. Why? Because this experience encaptualtes my life pretty well. A day where I have to intereact closely whit someone I fundementally hate, I have to eat ramen because I’m living off the change in my pocket, and terrible attempts at humor frustrate me to the point of tears and screams is typical. And at least it’s an experience. Some experience is better than no experience.