NaBloPoMo Day 4: The Art and Science of Giving Directions in NYC

So when Eric stayed overnight at our place a couple weeks ago, he needed to go to a hospital on the Upper East Side the following morning to visit his wife, aka the patient. Tom and I took a pulse on his subway skills as the first step in our "giving directions" process. We've learned this is vital. Eric said flat out he wanted the simplest route, so we didn't need to ask casual subway knowledge level assessment questions such as, "Define Uptown" or "If a train car is empty would you go in?" (answer: hell no)

We told Eric to just take the F. He could walk over to the 14th street stop and get off less than 5 blocks from his destination, so. Not the fastest route for sure, but we were confident he wouldn't wind up in the Bronx by mistake.

The morning of Eric's "commute" he took the elevator downstairs and said hi to Nachi the doorman. Naturally, Nachi takes the opportunity to ask Eric where he's headed. 

Eric says Upper East. 

Nachi says, how you gonna get there? 

Eric says the F. 

Nachi leans back in his chair looking really really troubled. THE F?

Nachi looks around for James the porter or maybe whatsherface the nanny from the 3rd floor who's always hanging around down there. Or the mail lady. Anybody. Anybody at all because guaranteed they would have exchanged a look with Nachi and shook their heads in total disbelief. 

Who told you to take the F to the Upper East?

Watch this video, it's short: 

Yup, true dat. This is how it goes down. Always.

And to be honest, I was a little embarrassed about the F recommendation. There are many better ways to go to the UES (that's short for upper east side if you failed the subway knowledge assessment test) from Chelsea which all would have been faster BUT WOULD HAVE REQUIRED CHANGING TRAINS. 

I was not gonna make Eric change in Union Square or 42nd Street for chrissakes. Can you imagine him up and down those crazy confusing stairs trying to get from the 1 or the L to the Q? He'd be traumatized.  A little extra hoofing it, imo, was a trade off that seemed to make sense. 

Anyway, we knew he could handle the walking:

When Eric and his whole entire family including his mother & father-in-law had come into town earlier, they went into the wrong hospital. The guard at the hospital said, oh no worries, just walk over to the right one. It's only 7 blocks from here. Eric took his wife's (the patient's) overnight bag and they all hotfooted the 7 blocks. 

(Right after they left, all the guards probably had a big fight because one of them thought it would be better to take the bus. Or the 6.)