WHO GIVES A SHIT: Do You Hate Traveling To The Motherfucking Suburbs As Much As I Do?

I'm gonna go out on limb here and make some predictions:

• Many of you have relatives that live in Connecticut, New Jersey, or Long Island.
• These relatives want you to come and visit them ALL THE MOTHER HUMPIN TIME
• These relatives also think that it's no biggie to come visit them ALL THE MOTHER HUMPIN TIME cause there are "easy" public transportation choices available to you! Yay! Take a train! Take a bus! Take the subway, to the train, to a bus, to a car!

Here's the thing, suburban ppl: most of the time, these trips are a TOTAL FUCKING NIGHTMARE.

And yeah: I get it. It's still nice that we have options, and we do enjoy coming to visit you suburban family ppl (sometimes), but could you at least acknowledge every once in a goddamned awhile what a gigantic pain-in-the-ass it is for us to get our asses out to see you???

Cause it so is.

Here's how a typical weekend trip goes for us when we need to travel to NJ or Long Island:

1. Check train schedule the night before. Our suburban family event begins at 12pm, so we decide that in order to get there on time, we have to take a 10:24am train leaving from Penn Station that get's us in at 11:08.
2. Arrange for someone to come walk our dogs while we're away for a billion hours.
3. Wake up early at 8am, walk the dogs', make the dogs' kongs.
4. Leave Brooklyn at 9am, JUST IN CASE. 2/3 trains usually come less frequently on the weekends, and sometimes they're going local. I didn't bother checking on the MTA's website because I just didn't.
5. Get on a 2 train. Yep, the bitch is running local. Also, we got the Mariachi band! In case you thought Mariachi bands don't start early in the morn on Saturdays: YOU ARE SO FUCKING WRONG.
6. Arrive at Penn Station at 9:40.
7. Buy train tickets ($26 for 2 round-trip tickets).
8. Loiter around Penn Station, buy $20 worth of mags at Hudson News and an artery-clogging Auntie Anne's pretzel. Also, Diet Coke (obvz).
9. Board train. Grab 3 person seat in the hopes that no one else will sit next to us and we'll have a bit of extra room.
10. A fat man eating a McGriddle lodges himself into our seat next to us. I'm disgusted with myself cause I'm actually thinking at this point that his McGriddle looks kinda good (and this is *after* I've eaten that Auntie Anne's cinammon sugar pretzel).
11. Arrive at destination at 11:08.
12. It's cold...or hot...or raining...or SOMETHING and our family member that is supposed to meet us and pick us up isn't there at the train like they're supposed to be. Good times.
13. 11:15, said family member arrives.
14. We think that we're on our way to our family event, but actually we need to stop first at Costco to pick up the cake, and then also stop at WaWa and get some ice. At least we're no longer standing in the heat/cold/rain. Again, good times. I have an idea! Let's turn on the radio and listen to some songs we hate.
15. Arrive at family event at 11:48. I'm exhausted (and hot/wet/cold), and the goddamned thing hasn't even started yet.
16. Pretend to smile and enjoy myself whilst checking the time on my phone every 11 mins to ensure that we don't miss our train home.

Total time elapsed: 2 hours and 48 minutes (to travel to a location that is 25 miles away from where we live). This is just ONE WAY, ppl.

Transportation used: subway, train, automobile and walking.

Total money spent: $26 for 2 roundtip train tix; $10 for 2 subway rides x2; $20 for snacks/mags; $25 for dog walker = $81

And I'm not even counting the cash we have to spend to buy presents for whichever suburban family member's event we're celebrating, which can add anywhere from $25 to hundreds of dollars to these shenanigans.

If we stay at the event for a few hours, leave at 3:30 or so, we'll be lucky if we're home by 5:45 that night.

Time spent at event: 3.5 hours.

Time spent commuting back and forth: 5 hours and 36 mins

And mind you, this is for a location that isn't *that* far away from us. For relatives that live further, tack on a few hours to this shit without even blinking.

Oh yeah: and lest I forget about the "how we gonna carry all this shit" dilemma that we always, always, always have. Cause either we have to bring presents for the kids, or a hostess gift, and then we have ipads, and purses, and backpacks and it's very fucking hot/cold/wet out and we have to carry nine billion things.

Are we having fun, yet??

On the flipside, in order to come see us, these suburban relatives usually just need to jump into their luxury, air-conditioned, satellite radio-gettin, leather seated cars. Yes, there is sometimes traffic, but also YOU HAVE AIR-CONDITIONING, PHONES, VIDEO SCREENS, COMPUTERS AND SATELLITE RADIO! And you are sitting down! In your own motherfucking cars! BOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO.

And guess who comes and visits whom more??

ATTN SUBURBAN PPL: Do you know how many dirty-assed seats we've sat in, trains we've run for, tickets we've spent our hard earned cash on, drunk ppl we've sat next to, cold/hot/wet days waiting for you at the train station we've spent, shitty food at Penn Station we've eaten, early mornings we've gotten up and missed out on sleeping in for, weekend days we've given up, subways we've been re-routed on, tunnels we've sat in on big, smelly buses not moving in inexplicable traffic, ALL TO COME AND VISIT YOUR ASSES?? A whole fuckin' lot.

So yeah: planes, trains and automobilez, bitches...it's no joke.