OH SHUT UP

Short today – I’m busy.

I have given up on the idea of getting to work on time this week – every day something has gone wrong either with the switching or the train it self.

My stop is an elevated stop; the next to last in Queens on the W & N. From my stop you can see the last stop. Nothing makes your early morning like standing in the rain watching the two trains in the last stop not move for 15 minutes.

I find myself imagining the conversation between the Conductor and the engineer of the next train out going something like this

“Want coffee Al?”
“Sure.”
“Milk”
“Make it skim”
“Sugar?”
“Sure.”
“One Lump or two?”
“Lump?”
“Sorry how many sugars?”
“Two.”
“Okay.”
“Say how about those Knicks”
“Shame they can’t get it together.”
“Shouldn’t we be going soon?”
“No – the W has to leave first.”
“But it’s having mechanical problems.”
“It has to leave first – if we did we’d be early.”
“Can’t have that.”
“No can’t have that.”
“More coffee?”

And so on. Finally the train comes it’s mobbed – and we are going slow cause a full train is pretty heavy – and it takes forever to get out each station as desperate people try to squeeze themselves into a full train.

The conductor meantime is saying: “Please use all doors on the train line.”

I don’t have faintest idea what the hell he means but he keeps saying it over and over again. And seems ticked nobody is paying attention to what he’s saying.

Finally we get to Queensbrough plaza, there not only does he go on and on about the doors on the trainline he announces in big big booming voice – that all our bags can be searched and it’s 8:54. Then he thanks us for riding the MTA.

Just shut up. Please. If you have any humanity at all just be quiet. It’s a rainy day, the summer is over and the train is jammed with people who are all going to be late for work. The last thing we need is someone with a voice loud enough to stun birds in flight and knock them to the ground the sky telling us that we should keep an eye out for suspicious backpacks because we might get blown up otherwise.

Death by Explosion would be at least be quieter.

The day hasn’t gotten much better since. They never do.