Early Morning Train

Monday, August 14, 2017

There was a new guy standing on the station platform this morning. I always arrive ten minutes early to get my usual spot as I await the 4:38 morning train to Grand Central Terminal. It’s never been a problem. Until this morning. Now this new guy is standing on my spot looking smug. Like it was his plan all along. I hate him. I don’t care if he’s working on a cure for cancer or has taken in a dozen orphaned children. I despise him. He’s on my spot! He’s messed up my tranquil morning routine. I will have to have a plan for the next day. Argh! I hate newbies at the train station!

Tuesday, August 15

I arrived an hour early. I had hoped it was just a fluke. Just some random guy catching the first train out to visit his aged mother at the nursing home or, more likely, his shrink. Because he’d have to be nuts if he thinks he’s going to be grabbing my spot on the platform every morning! My spot is the sweet spot. It’s the spot where the train doors opens. I step in and grab my favorite window seat before some psychopath on his way to his head-case doctor gets on board and thinks he can take it away from me! Like he just did! Damn him to hell! And I don’t care if every one of them twelve adopted kids of his are in wheelchairs! He’s still a spot-taking low-life! Well, you just see wait and see what happens tomorrow, mister ear-to-ear grin as he boards the train and snags the last goddamn window seat! My window seat! Just you wait!

Wednesday August 16

I arrived at the station two hours early and there was that son of a bitch. On my spot! Spread out in a lawn chair! Do you believe this! He brought his own son of a bitchin’ lawn chair to the platform to make my humiliation even more humiliating! And he’s drinking coffee from one of those cups you screw off the top of  those gallon-sized thermos jugs! Really! How much earlier did he get here that he needed a damn Thermos that holds enough coffee to supply a troop train! As God and the devil as my witness! There will be a reckoning tomorrow morning! I hate the damn aisle seat! But there I was! And there ain’t no damn window by the aisle seat!

Thursday, August 17

This morning I arrived three hours early. Damn, was it humid! As I headed up the ramp to the platform I knew I’d be sopping wet by the time the 4:38 pulled in. But I did’t care. I wanted my sweet spot that bad!

I’m guessing you’ve already figured what happened next. But what you probably didn’t figure was that there was a different new guy on my spot! Holy mother fuggin’ Christ! My life’s gone to hell in a hand basket! 

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see the original new guy making his way along the platform. He approaches the different new guy and hands him some cash. The different new guy pockets the money and walks away! Leaving my fuggin’ sweet spot in the hands of the blood sucking vulture who is slowly causing me to have a freakin’ coronary! I will be thinking long and hard on my next move, my friends! Long and hard!

Friday, August 18

I got up at midnight to get the 4:38 train and my wife accused me of having an affair. ‘You’ve been leaving the house earlier and earlier each morning,’ she said. ‘It’s a ten minute walk to the station.’ I explained the situation with the new guy. ‘I’d have felt more relieved had you told me you were bumping the bimbo next door,’ she said, ‘than to tell me you’re doing all this early morning maneuvering to get the window seat. Why don’t you step up and introduce yourself?  Maybe you two will hit it off and get yourselves on a window-seat exchange program - and then some group therapy during your lunch hour.’  She laughed and pulled the covers over her head. I left the house and headed to the station. I will not bore you with the rest. I’m sure you already know. 

Monday, February 12, 2018

At 1 AM the temperature was sub-zero. My teeth were chattering as I sat in my tent, my night-vision goggles focused on the station parking lot. I thought I had him beat for sure this time. Damn sure! Then I saw the parachute. . .

Photo courtesy of wiki commons: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:08-Cold_Spring_MNRR;_2017-11-13.jpg