There are lots of different things that people do to pass the time while riding on the train. Some people eat bananas and yogurt for breakfast. Other people have their daily ritual of reading the newspaper. People who want everyone else on the train to know how cool they are pull out their iPads and perform mindless tasks. There are the sleepers, the talkers, the readers, and the folks that don’t understand that the concept that earphones are for you, and you alone to listen along.

Me, I like to read. One of my goals in life was always to read 50 books in a year. In school there was never enough time for me to read that much, but while riding the train every day, it is a quite achievable goal. Sometimes when I get bored of reading I’ll listen to music, and if I’m tired, sleep. Occasionally I bring my netbook, and most rarely do I draw. I did sew once, and that certainly got me some odd looks from folks… well, mostly because I was sewing 8-fingered gloves for my 8-fingered mother.

Even more rarely then the aforementioned activities, I make seat check animals. It started quite a while ago… kids were on vacation from school, and a few of them wound up on the train with their parents, heading for the city. A conductor I know started making seat check animals for the kids when he had a free moment. I watched and was then like, hey, give me some of those seat checks. He says I cheat though, since I use scissors and glue, which is probably true. But it is one more thing to pass the time… Anyways, here is a little collection of silly things I made, all from recycled Metro-North seat checks and tickets (there are even some old tickets in there – a retiring conductor found them while cleaning out his locker and gave them to me). I call it my Metro-North Zoo.