Grief Griefing!

If you want a seat on the train, you certainly need luck, as I have mentioned previously. But you also need to be proactive and do your hishtadlus. Namely, when the train is pulling into a station, look around. Try to spot that woman reaching down to grab her purse’s handles. Try looking for people drawing their feet back, a telltale sign that they’re about to stand up. (Often, you can know who will be getting off at which station long before any physical movements are seen. This involves associating the individual with the neighborhood. I hope to post about this topic more in-depth in the future.) When you see a spot about to open up, head for it with all your energy. Pretend that you don’t see the 10 other people who are closer; go for it. With enough momentum, you can time it just right and pounce on the seat before others can react.

I successfully pulled this feat off earlier today. I saw a man look up and begin to stand. That’s when I made my move. I sprung forward and got the seat. A woman who had been standing much closer than me looked down, shocked to see me already seated in place. She definitely had a confused expression on her face, as if to say, “How did you get there so fast?” Ha! She thought the seat was hers. You need luck but also technique. Thankfully for me, she had no technique.

I know that for long-term sustainability of basic infrastructure, it is necessary to conduct routine maintenance from time to time. I am not against the concept of road repairs and construction; they are indeed important - but boy, they sure can be annoying. They’re currently doing some kind of road work right by the subway station at the intersection of Union Turnpike and Queens Boulevard. In the morning, Union is terribly backed up. On Wednesday, as the Q46 was inching its way forward, little by little, stop-and-go style, I noticed two people walking on the sidewalk, going in the same direction as the bus. I decided to play a silent and prizeless contest: to see who would reach the top of the hill (where the station is located) first. For a while it seemed like a pretty fair matchup. We on the bus would move forward, accelerating past them, and then stop suddenly. Then I would see them again, coming into view through the right side of the window, watching them move across from right to left, then disappear from sight. After a little bit, we’d go again and pass them. Then they would overtake us once again. This routine repeated itself numerous times: us, them, us, them, etc.

But in the end, we didn’t even come close. They whooped us.

I even watched through the windows as the bus in front of us discharged passengers halfway up the hill, in middle of the block, nowhere near a bus stop. Traffic had come to a total standstill, and that bus driver was kind enough to break the rules and allow his passengers to disembark right then and there, so at least they’d be able to hoof it to the subway and possibly get to work on time. All those passengers beat us to the station by a wide margin too.

The subway portion of the commute was a disaster as well. The train was incredibly packed. In fact, when I first boarded the train (this is before Roosevelt Avenue!), I didn’t get a pole to hold onto. It didn’t matter. There were so many bodies pressed up against each other in such a tight area, to the point where my balance was secure. I didn’t need to hold anything. The very moment I would start to wobble, I’d be up against someone else, in any direction. We weren’t stuffed in like a can of sardines. Sardines are packed into cans like rush-hour commuters on the E train.

Overall grade: F