subway stories.

As some may know, I reside in NYC for the months of the summer. More specifically, I live on the upper western side, yet my place of work is located on the east side, somewhere in the 50s. (I know the exact address, but I don't want to write it here, lest I become that "one guy" who started blogging about his job and put some inappropriate things on his blog and got fired. That guy's name is Lester. Lest I become that guy lester...strange.) Anyway, what this all means is that I have to figure out a way to get to work every morning, and that usually involves a lot of subway riding. There are some mornings where I will even ride 3 trains, and this is very bad.

Why is this very bad? A few reasons. First of all, the subway platform is the hottest place on the face of this here earth. I was thinking about this while I was sweating profusely this morning, and wondering if there is any way they will ever ever install air conditioning down there, or maybe gigantic fans or something. To make matters worse, I am usually wearing long sleeved shirts, even though many people at the firm wear short sleeve polos right now. I have about 5 solid (as opposed to striped or patterned-which I am inexplicably afraid to wear) short sleeved polo shirts, but I usually only wear them on fridays and weekends. By the way, not that I am a fashion guru or anything, but I beg any male who is reading this not to wear a button down short sleeved shirt to work. OR ever. Don't do it, its worse than wearing a turtle neck. So the point is that I feel compelled to give all my shirts "even-wearing" time, although some of them are old, stained, or missing buttons. I don't know why I do this with my shirts, b/c they are inanimate objects and do not have feelings. It is Ok not to wear all of them equally, yet I refuse to do so.

So I am sweating my butt off on the platform, and the train finally arrives, and this is good b/c the inside of the train has AC. If you see a car with no one in it, that probably means that the AC is broken so do not enter. It is either that or someone went to the bathroom in it, vomited, or was murdered or maybe only stabbed. But crowded air-conditioned cars have problems as well. Of course there is always weird contact moments where I find my hand on other people's butts, but thats all fun and games. The real awkwardness sets in if you actually get a seat, but people then hover over u menacingly. This happened to me last night, while I was traveling with some females who I know by name. I sat down, and a second later, some old dude's crotch is right in my face. To make matters worse, he stared menacingly at the female, thus accomplishing the rare yet amazing feat of "freaking 2 people out at once by simply standing still". Thank you old crotch man.

The subway also provides for the most random of all run ins. ("Random Min Ha'Random") I have no idea what the proper etiquette is for these type of run ins. Inevitably, you will run into 2 or 3 people a week who u have not seen or spoken to in the last 5 years. About once every two weeks u will run into a girl you dated. Once a month, you will run into a person you added to facebook, thinking you will never see them anyway, so why not add them at 5 AM. The subway is crowded and you cannot really even stop and chat to talk to them. I say give em a wave, a smile, and say "i'm sorry, i gotta run to work". This excuse doesn't always work, especially at like 10 PM. Or if they know that you don't have to run to any work at all, b/c you spend your time writing crap like this.