On board with a scare

One advantage to commuting by train/subway to NYC everyday is that I don't have to drive, leaving myself free to do other things, from reading to staring into space and everything in between. One of the disadvantages is that you have little control over how the ride goes and who's around you. On Tuesday, this fact became most obvious.

At the first stop on C-line after I had gotten on, a large man in a sleeveless shirt pushed in a cart carrying a bunch of Amazon boxes - about 6 columns of 7-8 boxes each, all apparently containing something. My first thought was, "Hum, this is odd. Usually Amazon uses truck services to deliver their packages." Before I had a chance to think more on it, the guy moved immediately across the car and faced a door opposite. "Rather trusting of his deliveries," I thought. At the next stop, the man got off the train without the cart.

At this point, I got a bit nervous. When you are walking through NYC you are warned to be on the look out for suspicious behavior and this certainly qualified. Could these be bombs? I thought now, "If I were a terrorist, I think I would blow up a subway train at Penn Station" ... and of course, this was where I was headed. So I was not incredibly happy to be on the subway at this time. At the next stop, I very seriously debated getting off. Never before have I been so concerned about blowing up ... and I had a gas leak in my apartment when I first moved in to it last July.

I stayed on the train and things I should not have been thinking about continued to race through my mind. "Which way should I face? If I look at the bombs and the blow, my face could be messed up. Of course, if these boxes are all bombs, it's probably not going to matter which way I look." This went on for a few more minutes until I finally got to Penn Station, got out, and never looked back.

I never reported the boxes, but I did watch the news that night to see if New York had exploded. It had not.

Looking back, I probably witnessed a drug delivery or someone transferring hot merchandise to an accomplice somewhere up the line. Whatever the case, this was the first time I missed driving to work in New Jersey.