Two weekends ago, I went with some friends to the blackout football game against Michigan. Due to the rain, the score, and our disinterest in football, we left the game early and ate pizza at our friend’s apartment on College Ave instead. I had to be up at 7:30 the next morning, so my roommate and I decided to head back to our own apartment on Busch around 10.
I can’t exactly explain what happened next. We checked the Rutgers app for bus times, headed over to the Train Station bus stop, and got on the bus that came right when we expected it to. We realized our mistake, and its gravity, when the bus took a right, instead of a left, onto George Street. My roommate and I looked at each other in horror. The realization that we had gotten on the wrong weekend bus sunk in. We checked the bus app in an attempt to remediate the isuue. Maybe we could get off the bus at the first Douglass stop, cross the street, and get on a bus going the other direction. This would only put us about twenty minutes out of our way. To our dismay, bus times weren’t in our favor. We accepted that we would be taking a 5 campus tour of Rutgers on our friend, the Weekend 2. At this point, Kate accidentally got the velcro of rain jacket stuck to a girl’s dreadlock. It was a special moment.
By the time we were halfway around Cook/Douglass, the bus had emptied out. The only people left were my roommate and me, and of course, a boy sleeping soundly a few rows back. We comtemplated waking him up to ensure that he wouldn’t miss his stop, but in the end just left him to enjoy his undisturbed slumber.
At this point, I decided to close my eyes and rest for a bit. We had been on the bus for about 30 minutes, everything had quieted down, and our situation didn’t seem so terrible anymore. We make it back to College Ave and then Livingston without a hitch. At Livingston, a gaggle of partygoers got on the bus and disturbed our peaceful ride. Kate and I were annoyed, but reassured by the fact that we would be back in our apartment so, so soon. As the bus approached the Busch Student Center, our dreams died. A crowd of students leaving the football game herded their way onto the bus. We didn’t have time to react; it was already too late. We were on a drunk bus, and we were not happy. We quickly formulated a plan to get off the bus at our upcoming stop. We get off at the Library of Science and Medicine, a rinky dink little stop in the bowels of Busch. Shoving our way off of a bus like this would be difficult, but not impossible.
As Kate and I continued to go over our plan: Kate would push her way through the crowd and I would pull the ‘stop requested’ cord to alert the bus driver of our attempted exit, we realized something felt off. We didn’t know where we were anymore. I peered out the window into the darkness and saw a sign for Route 18.
Once again, my roommate and I stared at each other in disbelief. This time, as chants of “**** Penn State” filled the humid, sweat-scented air of the bus. I think I cried a bit here. We were so close. For the second time that night, the bus system left us mystified. Apparently our Weekend 2 temporarily transformed into a Football Shuttle. After being on the bus for over an hour, and only two stops away from our apartment, we were making our way back to College Ave.
When we finally pulled ourselves together, we decided that we would get off the bus at the College Avenue Student Center and wait for a Weekend 1 at the SAC. The bus wasn’t coming for 17 minutes, but we passed the time quickly by ranting about hypermasculinity and counting the spiders dangling from the ceiling of the bus stop.
Finally, our savior, the Weekend 1, arrived. I confirmed with the driver that this bus would stop at all of the Busch stops. And it did! Roughly two hours after beginning our journey, we arrived at our apartment.
After an obsecene amount of time spent at the mercy of the Rutgers Bus System, Kate and I declared ourselves the real losers of the Michigan v Rutgers game. A 78-0 loss is nothing compared to the trauma we endured.