"There's blood in my mouth / 'Cause I've been biting my tongue all week"

To put it simply, I'm not on good terms with my old roommates (from Brooklyn) right now. When I found out that they would be cleaning our apartment (and doing a horrible job of it, as I discovered that--for instance--whoever swept hadn't bothered to move anything before doing so, leaving large streaks of dust on the ground) on Thursday night, I decided that I wouldn't head out there to get the rest of my stuff until Friday morning. Our lease was up yesterday (Monday, August 15), so it was imperative everything be removed before then. As I found out the last time I tried to move in on a Sunday, my new building does not allow moving in on Saturday or Sunday. Because I didn't want to do anything "wrong," I had checked with one of the doormen to find out if I needed to sign up to move my stuff in on a weekday. I was told that it was fine as long as I showed up between 9:30 AM and 4:45 PM.

In order to make it back to Manhattan on time, I left Brooklyn at 4. I drove down the road at the left vertical line. When I got to the orange circle, I saw a "Detour to the Williamsburg Bridge" sign, so I followed it. Where the curvy road that I was on runs into that other road, that perpendicular road went from two lanes (to my right) to one (to my left). The blue "x" represents a cop and the area where the road was two lanes.

Now, because it was two lanes there and I had been following a detour sign, I assumed that I was to turn right there, take the next immediate right, and then be on my merry little way to Manhattan. Of course, the picture below turned out not to be the correct one, so that big blue "x" pulled me over. I was so dumbfounded and in such a state that I never even realized that I was being pulled over--for the first time ever in my life.

Not only was I going the wrong way down the one-way, but it turned out that UHauls aren't allowed on the Williamsburg Bridge. I managed to keep my mouth shut and not tell him that I had driven it across that morning with no trouble, so I said--with complete incredulty--"Then how am I supposed to get back to Manhattan? I know I can't go in a tunnel." He said, "Take the Manhattan Bridge." "But how do I get there?"

He let me off with not so much as a warning because I think he could tell that I was just confused and all alone and frustrated. The U-turn he suggested taking turned into a fourteen-point turn--and I broke down in tears immediately after finishing. The directions he gave me to the Manhattan Bridge were accurate--but missing the final step. Half an hour later, I'm lost in an unknown part of Brooklyn and I feel like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone because the only people walking down the street are Hascidic Jews, so I'm surrounded by people only wearing black and white. I'm still bawling my eyes out at this point (not a good thing when you're driving a large cargo van in rush hour) and eventually make it to Chinatown--where I get lost again.

After navigating by pointing myself toward the Empire State Building (when I can see it), I finally made it to my new building at 5 PM, where I was told by the same guy who had busted me when I tried to move in on the weekend that I had needed to tell them I was going to move in and that I really wasn't allowed to do so. I started crying, explained that I had been lost in Brooklyn for three hours (an exaggeration), and finally got them to give in and to let me move in then. The problem was that there was a set of professional movers already there and I had to wait for them to finish using the service elevator before I could use it. Being true professional movers, they refused to leave while they haggled over the price. I was sitting in the UHaul for an hour in the 95-degree heat and humidity. I eventually got everything moved in, and then Becky came to visit for the weekend, so life was good after that.

I really felt all alone for the first time since moving to New York, which is why I cried until I started moving my stuff into the building. I broke down and called some friends for help, but I never like to ask for help like this and couldn't actually get a live person on the phone.

So, that's the basic story. As time has gone on, it's seemed less stressful to me, but at the time, I was pretty much inconsolable.