For all of you that didn't know how I spent this past weekend, I'll give you a hint: concrete, floods of tourists and Al Roker. If you didn't guess it already, I traveled to the Big Apple to camp out and become best friends with the one and only JMay (or for you that don't know him personally, you may know him as John Mayer?) After deciding to embark on this trip, I looked at all of the different possibilities of transportation to and from New York and Philadelphia. Attempting to find the cheapest route possible due to a summer net income of $0.00, I weighed the options of an Amtrak train, $100 round-trip, driving and finding a parking spot, at least $75 round trip, or a Megabus for $16.50 round-trip-it was clear who the winner was. Megabus had impressed the shit out of me- not only was their price less than a 24 pack of natty light, but there was even cushioned seats and WiFi, what's better than that?
Prior to getting on the bus, the Megabus process is that you show them your reservation number and you are pretty much free to get on the bus going to your designated destination. Getting on in Philadelphia and going to New York City was a slice of cake, and 10 hours later it was time to do it all over again, this time from the city back to Philadelphia. Now, while making this reservation, we believed that JMay would be playing until at least 10-10:30 on the Today Show, leaving us ample time to get back to Penn Station by 11:45 to catch the bus. Little to our knowledge, JMay only played four songs and was done by 9:45, leaving us with 2 hours to kill on zero hours of sleep; it would have been an understatement to say that we would have done anything to get home earlier. Arriving at Penn Station around 10:15, we approached a random Megabus employee and asked him if we could just get on the bus coming at 10:45. He sternly replied "NO. You must pay $5 extra, that is if there is even a spot open." Alright buddy.
Two girls. 27 Hours of No Sleep. There was no other option but to sneak onto that 10:45 bus.
Thus, our plan of beating the Megabus system commenced. We strategically placed ourselves in the line for the 10:45 bus to Philadelphia so that we were not the first passengers or the last, perfectly in the middle. Then, instead of showing the Megabus employee (who I will refer to as Mr. Megabus) the reservation number on a printed-out sheet, we showed him the reservation number on my blackberry, conveniently hiding the time of our scheduled departure of 11:45. As Mr. Megabus went through the line, he checked our reservation number, wrote it down, then moved further down the line; Allie and I thought we were in the clear, beginning to mentally prepare ourselves to actually sit in real seats and not on concrete sidewalks. Then, we saw Mr. Megabus head to the start of the line again, telling everyone that they had to show their reservation numbers again because there was an "impostor trying to pull a quick one". With our hands starting to shake and butterflies building up in our stomachs, we thought he would catch us this time, which would then be followed by a severe beating (he looked like the type of Mr. Megabus who throws down). So, going through the line again, we tried the same scheme of only showing the reservation number; to our surprise, he checked us off and continued on down the line.
After a few minutes had passed, we heard the call for everyone to start boarding the bus. Allie and I began to make our glorious walk to the side door of the bus, head's held high. As we passed by Mr. Megabus, the man in front of us asked "So, did you catch the guy who was trying to sneak on?" To that question, Mr. Megabus' response was "Oh, I caught him. I always catch 'em." Even though we most likely kicked a couple off of the bus that they had originally scheduled themselves for, we hopped into our seats and passed out, guilt-free and happy to be sitting in our $16.50 Megabus.And to Mr. Megabus himself- fuck the system.
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