Everyone who's late in NYC understands how sometimes, circumstances conspire to prevent you from getting anywhere on time.
If you're praying for a miracle E train to come hurtling around the corner, you usually have to watch six M trains go by until the train with a glowing, orange E saves your life.
Sometimes, that E train screeches up right when you need it, but this is rare. So let's all commiserate together. Here are 13 situations that only perpetually-late New Yorkers understand.
1. Rerouted subways
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That being said, when I time my trip out perfectly so that I arrive at Jamaica Center with just enough time to sprint to the train, and then the subway announcer proclaims that the train is being re-routed to the F line-- based on orders from the NYPD-- that never makes for a happy commuter.
2. Slow-moving crowds
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Am I the only one who gets disproportionately angry about human traffic? I just don't really understand why it's a thing. If everyone walked at a normal speed, couldn't we not all stand in giant clump trying to wait our turn to get down the escalator on the subway?
This is bad enough when you have all the time in the world to kill. When you were supposed to meet your friend fifteen minutes ago, and you still have a twenty-minute subway ride, this sort of makes you want to pull out a machete and behead every other person waiting to get down the escalator. On second thought, don't do that. It's not nice.
3. Narrow sidewalks
Rushing is super difficult on narrow sidewalks that really only have room for one person to be walking on them. Shuffling your feet to try to sprint around a woman bent over a walker makes you look and feel like a total asshole.
Actually, you are one for pushing up against that building and squeezing around a woman with a walker, but you're a busy New Yorker and you never get out of bed until the last possible minute.
4. One-way avenues
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If you catch a cab while it's going uptown on 1st Avenue and you need to get downtown, it's going to tack several minutes and dollars onto your journey-- even though your veins feel like they'll pop out of your neck if you can't get where you're going ASAP.
5. Overcrowded trains
When the train screeches to a stop (as you're staring hard at your watch like that'll make time move any slower) and the doors chime open, it's a very disheartening sight to see a train packed so full that it doesn't seem physically possible for another human to fit inside.
You, however, are dangerously close to missing that basketball game, and you really don't want to because it's the best part of your week. At this moment, jamming your body onto this packed train seems like the most important thing in the world.
Once you're crammed in smelling peoples' armpits, tilting your head toward the ceiling for some air, grasping for a subway pole far above your head-- you may ultimately end up regret the decision you made, even though you'll probably get to your basketball game on time.
6. Crosstown buses
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The Z and S trains are great, MTA, but can we please get some crosstown subways uptown... sometime before the year 2250?
7. Deceiving taxis
So you stick your arm in the air, doing exactly what you're supposed to do, but the cab barrels right by you, and that panic crashes back upon you, with even more force this time. Why would that cab have its light on, especially if it wasn't available?
8. Being broke
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They're also way more expensive. Uber is the best of all, because you don't have to stand on the street waving your arm around, hoping a cab driver will take pity on you. Of course, Uber is also the more expensive. So if you're broke, chances are you're also going to be late.
9. Clipboard people
The trick with them is to avoid eye contact at all costs, and if they do barrel their way into your line of vision, completely ignoring your desires on the matter, just explain that you're broke, but good luck.
10. Lines
Lines are the antithesis of being on time, the end of the world for perpetually-late New Yorkers. We couldn't possibly get on the subway before we get coffee, but waiting in line at the coffee shop is like slowly pulling teeth out of your mouth.
For New Yorkers, when we're late, waiting in line is as painful as opening your eyes in a vat of lemon juice.
That's a severe metaphor, but it's fitting. We hate it just as much.
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If you (like me) are late all the time, you're used to the disapproving looks and shaking heads of your friends when you, breathless, finally make it to happy hour just as everyone's ordering their third drink, or even packing up to leave the restaurant.
One weekend night, you're determined not to be the late friend, so you take a cab to the West Village to meet your friends at a bar, which winds up taking so much longer than the subway ever would (and costing so much more than the subway ever would).
When finally, a half hour later than you were supposed to, you burst through the doors of the bar, your friends are nowhere to be seen. You check your phone and see this: "running late, see you soon." So you're the first one there. Irony is cruel.
12. Angry bosses
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I have a friend who once told her boss that her air conditioner fell five flights out the window, and that's why she was late to work.
I have another friend who is supposed to be into work at 9 a.m. sharp, and one morning, when she sat up in bed and checked the phone and realized it was 11 a.m and there were also 10 missed calls from her boss. She had to frantically call back and lie about having strep throat.
New Yorkers tend to have a good nose to sniff out lies, and in these cases, both my friends' bosses knew nonsense when they heard it.
13. Dying cell phones
I always use my cell phone to navigate the city terrain-- there's something seriously existential about watching that blue dot travel along the street with me. Also, it definitely helps to figure out where you're going.
If your cell phone is dying, you'll probably be more reluctant to check the directions to make sure you're headed the right way. You won't be able to use Hopstop or Embark. In this cruel double-sword sort of way, having a dying cell phone also tends to make you late, and way more stressed out.
If you enjoyed this article, check out the 9 Soul-Crushing Stages of Texting in the Cold!
[Feature Image Courtesy BusinessInsider]