The Wrong Way

You are twenty-something, ambitious, exhausted, and about to learn that there are days when the universe seems determined to send you everywhere except where you are supposed to be.

You are young for your position. Very young, actually. You are training to become a store manager, and today you have been given an important assignment.

Another branch is being completely renovated. New shelves. New merchandise. New staff. Everything has to be organized, labeled, stocked, and prepared before the store can properly operate again. You are supposed to help with the perfume, drugstore, and household departments, arrange the merchandise, check the labels, and help train the new employees.

It is responsibility.

It is trust.

It is also the worst possible day for your alarm clock not to ring.

You open your eyes.

Something is wrong.

The room is too bright.

You turn your head toward the clock.

Seven o'clock.

For a second, you simply stare at it.

Seven?

You were supposed to get up at five.

You throw yourself out of bed.

There is no breakfast. There is barely time to think. You rush into the shower, get dressed as quickly as you can, grab everything you need, and run toward the tram stop.

Your train is leaving from Cologne Central Station.

Your train is probably already gone.

Still, you run.

The tram arrives.

You jump aboard.

The doors close.

The tram starts moving.

And almost immediately, you realize something.

You are going the wrong way.

No.

No, no, no.

This cannot be happening.

You stare through the window as the tram cheerfully carries you away from the railway station.

At the next stop, you jump out, cross over, wait for the tram going in the opposite direction, and try very hard not to scream.

Eventually, you reach Cologne Central Station.

Of course, your original train is long gone.

You hurry to the information counter and explain that you need to get to Koblenz.

There is another train.

It is leaving in about ten minutes.

You can buy your ticket from the conductor.

Perfect.

At least something is finally going right.

You rush upstairs to the platform. You look at the sign. You see the destination information. In your hurry, everything seems correct.

You get on.

You find a seat.

The train starts moving.

Finally.

You can breathe.

You are late—terribly late—but at least you are now on your way to Koblenz.

A conductor approaches.

“Ticket, please.”

You explain that you don't have one yet. You were late, you say. Someone at the station told you that you could buy your ticket on the train.

You tell him you need a ticket to Koblenz.

The conductor looks at you.

Then he starts laughing.

You stare at him.

You don't see anything funny.

“What is it?”

He looks at you with the expression of a man who is trying to decide how gently to destroy what remains of your morning.

“This train is going in the other direction.”

You don't answer.

You can't.

Not again.

You have already taken the wrong tram.

Now you are sitting on the wrong train.

You can feel the tears coming.

“This can't be true.”

Unfortunately, it is.

The conductor looks at you again, and perhaps he sees that you are only one more disaster away from completely falling apart.

He tells you not to buy a ticket.

Just stay on the train for another two or three stops.

Then get off.

On the opposite platform, about twenty minutes later, another train will arrive.

That one will take you to Koblenz.

You look at him as though he has just offered you rescue from a desert island.

You don't trust yourself to say very much.

A few stops later, the conductor returns.

“This is yours.”

Your stop.

You get off.

Now you stand on a platform in a place where you never intended to be.

You are not supposed to be here.

You don't even want to be here.

Somewhere in Koblenz, people are waiting for you to help prepare a store.

Instead, you are standing beside railway tracks after traveling in the wrong direction twice in one morning.

There is nothing left to do except wait.

Twenty minutes.

You watch the tracks.

You watch the clock.

And because this is still a time when trains actually seem to arrive when they are supposed to, twenty minutes later, the train appears.

You almost don't dare believe it.

You get on.

This time, when the conductor comes, you know exactly what you need.

“A ticket to Koblenz, please.”

No laughter.

No terrible news.

No wrong direction.

Koblenz.

Finally.

The journey takes about two hours.

By the time you reach the store, you are four and a half hours late.

Four and a half hours.

You walk through the doors knowing that there is no explanation that will make the story sound sensible.

Your alarm didn't ring.

Then you took the wrong tram.

Then you took the wrong train.

Then you had to travel several stations farther in the wrong direction so that you could finally travel in the right one.

You tell your colleagues.

They laugh.

Of course they laugh.

What else can they do?

Eventually, you laugh too, although it isn't quite as funny when you are the person who has just spent half a day trying to reach a place that everyone else managed to find without accidentally touring the German railway system.

But your working day isn't over.

You came to help, and help you will.

There are shelves to fill, merchandise to organize, labels to check, employees to assist.

So you work.

And work.

And work.

Until midnight.

When you finally leave the store, some of your colleagues accompany you to the station. After everything that has happened, nobody wants you standing there alone.

Perhaps nobody trusts you near a train anymore.

You can't really blame them.

This time, you check everything.

The platform.

The train.

The destination.

Probably more than once.

You get aboard.

You travel back toward Cologne.

The day that began at seven in the morning finally ends sometime around two the next morning, when your father picks you up at the station.

You have made it home.

You have survived.

And, mercifully, you have a long weekend ahead of you.

Years later, you can laugh about it.

You can tell the story and hear other people laugh too.

But somewhere inside you, that young woman is still standing on a railway platform, staring down the tracks and wondering how it is possible to be so completely, spectacularly, undeniably—

in the wrong place.

Twice.