Iron rails & iron weights

Saturday, May 10, 2008
6:53:00 PM EDT
At least it seemed to take forever

Back to routine today after yesterday's drive to Ronkonkoma.  I got the shuttle at Medford, then the 6:56 Flatbush Avenue train from Ronkonkoma to Jamaica.  The 6:56 didn't seem too crowded, and I was hoping that no one would sit next to me.  Unfortunately I had to endure a bit of squishing from Mineola to Jamaica, courtesy not of an elephantine SCA as is usually the case but by a rather wide-hipped woman in her 30's.  Wide hips may confer certain evolutionary advantages but they are most assuredly not adapted to the obscenely small seats on LIRR trains.  I suppose Darwin couldn't have predicted that.  At least Mineola to Jamaica is a short run, and I got off at Jamaica to get the 8:01 dual mode to Penn.  My trip on the 1 train to Houston Street definitely left much to be desired.  Though I didn't wait long, the train went into 14th Street very slowly and arrived on the express track.  The conductor announced that there was a disabled train at Canal Street and the next stop would be Chambers.  Okay, I figure, I'll get off at Chambers and take a Bronx-bound 1 back to Houston Street.  What I did not anticipate was that it took almost ten minutes to crawl to Chambers.  To add insult to injury, the disabled train must have gotten underway again because there was nothing at Canal.  I then had to wait several more minutes at the obscenely crowded uptown platform at Chambers just to get back to Houston Street.  When all was said and done it took me over 30 minutes to get from Penn Station to Houston Street.  I could have walked it in about the same amount of time.

Getting home was a close encounter with a time warp.  I got to Penn quickly enough thanks to a fast transfer at 14th and got the 5:41 to Ronkonkoma.  A tall but slim young woman sat next to me and I thought I'd have ample room, but just before departure she abruptly got up and left the train, she must have realized she was on the wrong train.  I figured that a huge SCA would take her place, but fortunately I was lucky and a man of no more than 200 pounds sat there.  Didn't he realize he was supposed to be a blob?  While there were no significant delays to Ronkonkoma and the shuttle, we might've been four or five minutes late but no more, the ride seemed utterly interminable.  Either I was in a time warp of the sort Einstein theorized, or I was just so eager to get home after a long workweek that it merely seemed endless.  You be the judge.


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