On board with a national championship

Allow me to go off topic for a moment:


Franklin Street: The Celebration from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

And I will say this: taking the last train from NY home on a Monday night is an entirely different experience than taking a rush hour train. The train was almost empty save for a few people traveling alone, and I couldn't help but wonder what each of their stories were. Why were these people traveling from NY to NJ at 12:45? And the one guy who sneezed 45 times in a two minute span: why did you even leave your house?

On board with that stink

As an everyday user of public transportation, I have gotten used to smelling the most wretched odors imaginable. There are the smells of BO that permeate Penn Station. There is the strong stench of urine in the underpass at the Subway station at Spring St. And let's not forget the people who are very comfortable passing gas on crowded cars; God love 'em, they are unashamed.

But this morning I had a first. On the subway on the way to work this morning, a man came onboard holding his 3- or 4-year-old daughter, whose rear was near my head, and I got the unmistakable whiff of a soiled diaper.  The car was crowded, so she stayed by my nose until the next stop, when thankfully, dad moved closer to the door and I was allowed to breathe again. He got off at the stop before me, and I can only hope - for the other people of New York - that he changed that diaper soon after. She may have been small, but she did her part to make NYC public transportation one the smelliest in the world.

Rain rain, go away ... oh wait you did

I propose a moratorium on umbrella use when it is not raining.

Yesterday, on a morning that was dark and foggy - yet remarkably dry - there stood a woman on the platform of the train station holding a large, yellow umbrella. Holding it above her head, she took up a good three square feet of prime real estate - including the spot on the platform where I typically like to stand. What was most peculiar about this all, though, was that it was not raining. It had not rained for some time, in fact, and still she stood, isolated in her imaginary downpour. I stood next to her and stared for a while, my hands empty and yet still managing to stay dry.  After a few minutes, she realized that her umbrella was entirely gratuitous and put it down. 

I thought her ability to irritate me had passed, but after two solid minutes of fidgeting to tie up her umbrella, she popped a piece of chewing gum - mint I believe - into her mouth and chewed that stuff like a cow chowing on grass. There are few things that annoy me more than someone chewing with their mouth open, and this woman managed to make every other lip smacker I've ever met sound like a congregation of librarians. I swear I could hear her over the train as it barreled up the tracks. And this was with my headphones in. Maybe I should have gone to more concerts growing up. My hearing wouldn't be so sensitive, and I'd have more ticket stubs for my scrapbook.*

*There is no scrapbook.