Rock 'n Roam

And we’re talking NYC, so I clearly don’t mean the sandwich chain.

Believe it or not, taking the train has become one of my favorite daily happenings. I get to zone out and listen to music, and every interruption to date has been hysterically entertaining to the point where I don’t even mind being cut off halfway in the middle of: We are never ever EVERRRRRR getting back together.  Sorry, Taylor Swift, but it’s worth it.  During the hurricane week, I was even going through subway withdrawal (along with Manhattan withdrawal).

So without further ado, here’s some brief summaries of my favorite subway occurrences thus far.

Preaching man: He babbled for what felt like hours, holding up a sign that said, “Jesus will save you” while an angry woman yelled at him to “Shut up!  This is public transportation!  Take it to the streets!”  Afterwards, he started fist pounding any person who would allow him to, and pressing his sign against the window anytime another train would pass by.  I can at least give him one star for his dedication.

Joking Man in pain: The train jolted while it was packed full of standing passengers, causing me to fall backwards, just barely catching my balance by accidentally stomping on a man’s foot behind me.  I turned around in horror and said “Oh my god, I am so so so so so sorry!”, to which he replied, cringing “It’s alright…I just had surgery on that foot.”  When my mouth dropped open, he said sheepishly, “Just kidding.”  Dude, that’s so not funny.

Group of children and teenagers: I’ve come to realize that there’s always going to be some type of “fundraising” performance effort on each ride I take.  This particular one happened to be a group of 4 or 5 kids who came barging into the middle of the train, commanding everyone to move out of the way.  They proceeded to put on a very mediocre, unrehearsed break dance session, that I could have done better myself.  I suck at dancing, so that’s how bad it was.  Afterwards, they held out their hands for money, and I instantly pulled out my wallet and gave them a dollar because I felt bad.  You can tell I’m not a real New Yorker yet, because all the real ones look down at their phones and avoid making eye contact with these people.  This might lead to a future post about how I am going to become homeless giving homeless people all my money.

Extremely fat man: This one’s the best.  We got on the train to go into Manhattan for Mel’s birthday dinner last night.  When we sat down, I immediately noticed that the man sitting across from us was at least 500 pounds, but probably much more.  I made sure not to stare of course, but within the first few moments of our ride, he literally TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT.  I’m serious.  He pulled off his sweatshirt and then struggled to wiggle out of the t-shirt underneath it.  Unfortunately for us, he succeeded admirably.  He then tugged a new t-shirt out of his backpack and put that on instead, throwing the dirty one aside.  Let me tell you, I tried so hard not to watch but I was mesmerized.  It’s like one of those things when someone says, “Ewww…road kill!” and you immediately press your face against the window, saying “where, where?!”  It’s human nature to be curious, okay?  Anyways, at this point, I was biting my lip and trying really, really hard not to look at Mel, because I knew that as soon as I did I would burst into laughter about this very large man’s random undressing episode.  Things got even worse when the train came to a stop at Wall Street, and the guy spoke in perfect unison with the automated train operator…”This is Wall Street.  Transfer are available to the A, C, E, J and N train.”  He recited the correct lines at each and every stop to the point where I was actually kind of impressed.  I guess the lesson here, is that some people live on trains, and that’s OK, even if they undress in front you.