So this trip certainly started off interesting… I was debating whether I should leave to go to the airport really early or not… the fact that I woke up at around 4am and couldn’t sleep sort of decided that for me. Everything was sort of unremarkable on the first part of the ride in, I took the train that conductor Peter is on, he used to be on my train in the evenings. Honest to god though, a 5am train? I don’t know how he does that every day… and stay so chipper the entire time. He’s ever the optimist.

The subway was where the fun began, however. When I got on the E train it was pretty packed full of people, so there was no place to sit. And there was a guy with a ginormous backpack that prevented me from really moving around or grabbing onto a pole for support. There was a man sitting in one of the seats stretched out, and he moved over and offered me a seat. I sort of didn’t want to sit next to him, he was acting strange. And even if I did, backpack man was preventing me from really moving.

I kept swaying back and forth attempting to hold my luggage as the train was moving, which wasn’t working too well. The guy in the seat kept saying I was going to fall over, and I should sit next to him. I ultimately gave in and sat next to him. It was then that I was close enough to smell that he had alcohol on his breath. Definitely drunk.

The real hilarity began when the train stopped and new people entered. The guy seemed starved for human attention. Whenever someone walked in he had to ask them a question. And really stupid questions, too. “What time is it?” — Well the board with the station stops has that right on there. “Is this an express train?” “Is this train going to Jamaica?” Those are also repeated over and over by the train. Then there were the especially lucky females that he turned his attention to. He asked them all, “Do you remember me? I remember you.” One lady played along. Another lady ignored him completely. He kept saying, “Miss? Miss? You don’t remember me?” She turned and looked the other way, and he saw the back of her head. And she just happened to have her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Oh yeah, I remember you. I remember that ponytail. Uh huh, oooh that ponytail, baby.” I wanted to burst out laughing.

After that lady got off the train, he got up, placed his bag on the seat, and opened the car doors leading to the other car. I was wondering what the hell he was doing. Did he have a bomb in the bag, and was leaving it on the train? The whole “if you see something, say something” and look out for unattended bags thing is deeply ingrained in my mind. After a minute or two that he spent riding in between the two cars, he reentered my train car, while pulling up and zippering his pants. He fucking peed out the subway doors as the train was moving.

Anyways, that is about it from me.