Port Authority is the portal to hell

Yesterday I took a little day trip to DC, just to get out of the city and do something different. Normally I do not have Saturdays off from the Crew, as those are pretty much the busiest days. But I had asked for this one off so I could have a joint birthday party with a friend that has the same birthday as me. Well, neither one of us are really good at the planning stage; we're more of the talking-big stage. I didn't want to waste my free Saturday, and I definitely didn't want to pick up anyone's shift, so I decided on a little mini-trip.
I decided to go Greyhound, since it's cheap for a person of limited finances--$39.50 for a roundtrip ticket. I wanted to make the most of my day in DC, so I purchased the ticket leaving New York at 3:45....in the AM!! Early, I know, but this way I would get into DC at 8:40 and have tons of time to do what I wanted. Then I wouldn't have to come back as late. Oh, how simple and naive were my thoughts!
I got up at 1:15 and left my apartment at 2:20. I'm one of those people who worries about not having enough time to get ready and so gets up earlier than needed to make sure there's time for everything. Plus, you never know how long you'll have to wait for a train when it's 2:30 in the morning.
I've been to Port Authority before, but not to the place I went yesterday morning. The stairway smelled like urine, the floor was dirty and strewn about with bottles, trash, and sticky liquids. Gross. I would deter any sensible person I know away from it. In fact, I would pretty much anyone I do and do not know. It's just not a great place to have to spend three and a half hours of your time! That's right, I said three and a half hours! It seems as though Greyhound sells more tickets than there are seats. Or else there was an incredible back-log of prior departure times missing their buses, hence making my bus, that I didn't get on, full of people who had tickets for a 1:30 departure. Having never rode Greyhound I can't confirm either one. All I know is that I stood in line for 30 minutes before we were informed that another bus would be here in an hour to an hour and forty-five minutes. Or, roughly, the 6:30 bus.
Around six it was announced that everyone at gate 74 with a destination of Washington D.C. would now have to move to gate 71. Did people politely move in an orderly, line-following way to gate 71? No! It was a mad dash to gate 71, with people pushing and shoving hoping to get a better position. No order, no line, just craziness and chaos. And when a bus finally showed up, and people who had been in line behind me when there actually was a line, were getting on the bus. At this point I was tired, frustrated, and considering just stepping out of the crowd and going home. I clearly wasn't getting on this bus and I had now lost out on three hours of my day in DC. If that's how I was feeling I couldn't imagine how the people who had 1:30 departure time tickets were feeling; they waited over 5 hours, and now people who had priority seating (something that I know see is totally worth the extra 5 bucks) for the 7 am bus were getting on before them. I almost felt bad if I got on before one of them; I was just going for pleasure but what if they were going for something important?
But a manager showed up to tell us that another bus would be here in three minutes. I somehow, miraculously, got on, and, along with everyone else on the bus, immediately fell asleep. Not as if sleeping on a bus could be considered good sleep, but I was allowed to close my eyes so it was passable. And at 11:20 am I finally got to Washington D.C.