Tragedy Plus Time

Humorous Event

You know that old saying about tragedy plus time equals humor? Well that exemplifies my Spring Break. I flew in to D.C. and was planning on taking an early morning train to New York City to visit one of the graduate schools that I am applying to. I had to wake up really early to get to the train station in D.C. to make the train. Now, I am not at all a morning person so this was extremely difficult for me to do, but alas I managed to get there on time. I was early for the train and waited patiently for it to arrive. But of course with my luck, the train was late. After ten minutes of waiting they made an announcement to wait in the terminal that the train would be arriving soon. Thirty minutes later it still had not arrived. 

I glanced over and saw that another train was heading for New York and would be departing shortly. I decided that I would see if I could transfer my ticket to that train, so I went to the ticket counter and they allowed me to change my ticket free of charge. But the attendant was new and he printed off the wrong ticket. At some point he canceled the original ticket and continued trying to fix his mistake. After ten minutes he finally got in figured out and printed my correct ticket. So I ran across the station to catch the train, but it had closed its doors for passengers and I was not able to get on. To make matters worse, my original train had arrived and was boarding passengers, but my ticket was canceled for that train so I was not permitted to ride. 

So again, I walked over to the ticket counter and attempted to get another ticket. The attendant was kind and issued me a ticket for a train that left in 50 minutes. I went to my gate and sat there for 40 minutes until the train arrived and let me on. By the time I sat down on the train and we pulled away from the station, I should have been arriving in New York City in half an hour. While I was irritated beyond belief at the time, I made it to the city in time for my interview and everything went great. Looking back on the incident, I can see the humor in watching myself miss trains and running around the station looking ridiculous. Of course I would never want to deal with that again, but it is a story that I will take with me.