Rats! (or: Welcome back to work!)

Having been out of the state for two weeks, I had a long period of adjustment on my commute this morning. Essentially, I forgot everything that makes the journey from New Jersey to New York so quaint:

• Walking to the train station in the bitter cold as a fierce northern wind blows snot loose in my nose (I apologize; there was no better way to say that)
  
• The mad rush to get inside the train so you can find a seat
  
• Large men sitting with their legs spread far apart, taking up as much of my seat as they feel comfortable doing (spoiler alert: it's a lot)
  
• The conductor who greets me every morning with "Good morning! All tickets display!" providing a sentence I still cannot diagram correctly.
  

And best of all: the rats scurrying along the subway tracks.  This morning I saw a rat that at first did not appear to have a tail. Luckily, I had time to study him and found that he did in fact have a tail. So much the better.

And thus enters 2009. Welcome back!