Double Standards

So in my last post I chronicled the misadventures of a disaster of a woman vomiting on herself and not having the common decency to even acknowledge it, let alone clean it up. We’ll revisit that in a little bit.

Tonight’s joyride was already off to a great start. Some woman sits down next to me and then stuffs her gigantic coat (it’s Autumn, people, not winter in North Dakota) in between us. This is great. I'm having a great time.

After contemplating committing seppuku, I hear the faintest of voices over the PA. We’re being held in Hicksville. I think. I’m not entirely sure. Whenever they announce inane shit repeatedly (“RONKONNNNNNNNNNKOMAAAAAAA! THIS IS THE TRAIN TO RONKONNNNNNNNNKOMAAAAAA!! NO JAMAICA STOP ON THIS TRAIN!! NOOOOOOO JAMAICAAAA!! NOOOOOO JAMAICA STOP!!”), it’s louder than the voice of god, but when they actually need to let you know something important, the conductor becomes a fucking church mouse.

We’re forced off the train onto the platform and none of us have any idea why, because no one has told us. At one point a clear voice comes on the PA and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re being held here because ---” and they end their transmission and never bother to finish that statement. Is the MTA’s website any help? Honestly, why do I bother?

This is a lie. A big ol’ muthafuggin’ lie.

Turns out someone got sick on the train and we all had to clear off and wait for the next one. Wait… didn’t I have to sit on a train just a few feet from someone’s ex-McDonald’s dinner just a few weeks ago? We didn’t have a Contagion-esque emergency then. Why now?

We were all standing on the platform waiting for our new train to come. “Haven’t you ever seen the train on St. Patrick’s Day? Clear everyone outta that car and let’s go!” bellowed a man I have the utmost respect for at a weasely conductor I loathe. I came very close to 80s movie slow clapping for that statement.

So of course when someone gets sick on the train it needs to be immediately evacuated and cancelled. Except for when it happens right in front of me. Because I did something awful in my past life and I’m paying for it dearly in this one.

I'm Lovin' It

I knew something was off about this lady the second she sat down. Maybe it was the glazed over look in her eyes. Maybe it was the way she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Or maybe it was the way she kept missing her mouth as she jabbed McDonald’s French fries towards her face.

What could it be? I got it. This woman, who had just sit cattycorner to me, was stinking drunk. And what followed, was classic Long Island Fail Road.

Now, I’m no saint. I’ve ridden this train drunk before. Why, this past holiday season I had a little too much to drink at the office Christmas dinner, and I was a bit of a mess on a jam-packed, late-night train. Of course, it was an old train, so naturally it was jostling back and forth about eighty times more than a newer train would have been. I found a seat by myself. I was sweating, I was freezing cold, and my stomach was turning. It felt like I was on the Zipper on Coney Island. The more I tried to keep my mind off the nausea, the more I became hyper-aware of it. My mouth started salivating and I knew I had to throw up. I bolted for the bathroom.

The bathrooms on the newer trains aren’t so bad. They have plenty of room in case a disabled person may need to use it, there’s a sink with running water, an air hand dryer, and a toilet that flushes with a hell of a lot of suction (so you can’t possibly be embarrassed by clogging the thing).

But I wasn’t on a newer train, remember? The bathrooms on the old trains make port-a-potties look like the queen’s private chambers. Chemical toilet? Check! No sink? Check! Smaller than a glove compartment? Check! Hand sanitizer that hasn’t been refilled since Bill Clinton was in office? Check! Paper-thin door that allows everyone sitting nearby to hear what you’re doing in great detail? Sigh, check.

After I emptied the contents of my stomach I made the walk of shame to the nearest open seat, as someone took the isolated one I had before. Thanks to the lack of soap and running water, I couldn’t wash my face, hands, or rinse my mouth out. Everyone heard me. They were all staring. The girl sitting two seats over from me covered her nose with her scarf because I smelled like vomit. Awesome. I was that guy.

But at least I wasn’t this drunken wench who after lurching around in her seat, proceeded to turn her head and vomit those French fries all over her right arm and onto the floor. Did she get up to go to the bathroom? Did she use some of those Mickey D’s napkins to clean herself off or clean up her mess? Of course not! She proceeded to literally sit in her own filth, whilst drifting in and out of sleep. Now if you had been picturing this woman as a gross, disheveled girl in her early twenties, you’d be dead wrong. This was a well-put together, professionally dressed woman in her late thirties, early forties.

I am shaming you publicly on this site because you’re a disgusting, filthy cretin.

As soon as the train hit its next stop, she bolted off.
“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” said a man sitting near me who didn’t see the incident happen, but had a clear view of the aftermath.
“What do you think it is?” asked a grinning man who had a front row seat.
The first man replied, “Well it looks like she spilled some oatmeal, but I don’t think that’s what it is.”

We all made fun of her for a bit, alerted passersby to be careful and not slip on the vomit, and we all grabbed new seats as soon as some opened up. This fun ordeal capped off a 12-hour workday, because the cosmos likes testing me at every chance it gets.

And just when I thought I had run out of shit to write about.