Falling Down

For me, this day has been one of those "Falling Down" days. You know the kind. Where the second you roll off the wrong side of the bed, things are immediately amiss, and you know within seconds that you're going to spend the better part of the next 24 hours pissed off. The annoyances mount quickly. You're out of deodorant. You get toothpaste on your shirt. You rip your pants putting them on. You have cereal but no milk.

In my case, the bane of my existence lately has been the Godforsaken J/M/Z train and the miscreants who run it. For some reason, they're working on the tracks on the Williamsburg Bridge during rush hour, so each morning, the train has been coming at four hour intervals. (It's really more like 20 minutes, but it feels like 4 hours.) Not only that, but they are using one track -- the Manhattan bound track -- to serve both incoming and outgoing trains. It's a brilliant maneuver at rush hour, I have to tell you. No sense doing this work in the middle of the night.

Due to this retarded bit of urban planning, for the past two weeks, I've spent an eternity each morning waiting on the damn platform in my suit and tie, baking in the hot morning sun with a hundred other people. Obviously, when the train doesn't arrive at regular intervals, the waiting crowd grows to absurd proportions. Ergo, when the train finally arrives a half hour later, your chances of actually getting on the train, which is already overloaded with sweating people from the five stops before you, is significantly diminished. If you don't make it, you're stuck with waiting another half hour (or whenever) for the next train. And if you somehow manage to get on, you're penned in like a pig on its way to the slaughter. People don't tend to smell too good in this weather, especially on this particular train, which features unwashed hipsters and old, Hasidic men in heavy black overcoats and tophats. So the pig analogy is not too far from the reality.

Today, I waited on the platform for at least a half an hour. Not surprisingly, when the train finally came, I couldn't get on. I didn't even try that hard. The only thing I could see in each doorway were random backs, asses, and arms. Unlike some people in these situations, I don't feel compelled to push myself into the train like a jerk. The downside: two minutes later, the train left me standing on the platform with several equally unlucky and unpushy compatriots.

Rather than continue waiting, I exited the platform and walked the long, slow walk to the L Train on Driggs and North 7th. On the way, I stopped to take my suit jacket off because I was sweating like a St. Bernard. I removed my jacket and examined the damage. It wasn't pretty. I looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water on me. There were more damp spots than dry spots on my nice, no longer pressed, blue and pink striped dress shirt. I disgusted myself. Rather than subject everyone else to this sorry scene and suffer further humiliation, I put my jacket back on. It felt totally gross, like putting on a dripping wet bathing suit.

Beyond pissed at this point, I walked as quickly as I could to the L Train. Steam was coming out of my ears. Dodging people to and fro, man on a mission, I felt like D-Fens from Falling Down, minus the briefcase and baseball bat (and semiautomatic). I finally made it and the train was there within three minutes. Once I got to my office, I shut my door and sat down, exhausted. It took me an hour to drip dry, no joke.

On days like this, I'm really glad that I have an aversion to guns. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.