Entry #3 – The Subway is a Strange, Magical Place… but Yeah, Carry Hand Sanitizer

Time for something positive, I think – short and sweet.  It IS NaNoWriMo, so I have multiple commitments.  I think you’ll like this one, though.  I'm feeling a little sentimental tonight. <3

Today I was talking with a few other interns, and you know how conversations end up where everyone goes around talking about the weird things that happen to them.  One person mentioned about how she’d seen someone chopping onions on the subway.

Cutting board out.

Knife at the ready.

Onions being hacked into tiny little pieces, with at least twenty onlookers to their demise.

I can’t imagine anything remotely like this.  I have no idea what I would do in that situation.  My first thought was, “Was everyone crying?”  I worry about frivolous things.

Another person chimed in and mentioned that they’d seen a man in a tutu doing a striptease.  Someone had witnessed a naked man waiting for the train.

I haven’t had anything like this yet, but I’m sure, like all great things in life, it will come when the time is right (or not, but it will be thrilling regardless of convenience). 

But while I haven’t had my token weird subway experience yet, I have come across a different kind of subway magic.  Moments where other people smile at you for giving up your seat for someone who needed it more.  When everyone grins at a cute kid saying goodbye to everyone as they step off the train, and then catch each other’s eyes and grin even more.  When you step between someone with no space bubble and someone who looks terrified, and scooch the overbearing person back just a bit.  When someone questionable sits half on top of you, and the person on your other side immediately moves over and gives you more space.  Just because they know.  They’ve been there before. 

It’s this odd sense of camaraderie that arises out of nowhere, just when you feel like no one in the whole city has a single human bone in their body.  There are some great humans riding the subway, every day.  When your back is quite literally against the wall, someone just might notice and give you some space.  Why?

Because we’re all riding the train together.

P.S. I just saw another cockroach.  It must die.

P.P.S.  It scuttled under my refridgerator before I could get to it.  Have pulled out excellent roach killing slippers and shut off a few lights to bait it.

P.P.P.S. Maybe I should just go get the raid?  And just spray it under the fridge?

P.P.P.P.S. Should I open a window before I do that?

P.P.P.P.P.S.  Oh hell.  It’s one freaking cockroach.  If it brings any more friends I’ll just burn the apartment building to the ground.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S.  No.  NO.  If I want to sleep in peace, the Raid has to happen.  HEAR ME, ROACHES?  I AM SPRAYING THE RAID.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The Raid has been sprayed.  Windows are open, thank goodness, because this stuff should not be breathed in by anything that wants to live longer than five minutes.  

Going for a walk.