So You Want to Be a Subway Rider?

Occasionally in the subway, a phenomenon called the "ghost car" occurs - a car that pulls in front of you on the platform will not open its doors. It's fluorescent lighting is off. It's completely empty, with no discernible marks of disrepair. One can only guess at what caused this condition. Perhaps it was because some poor soul vomited after drinking too much Starbucks. Or maybe it was because that particular car's last load of people all collectively had gas. A couple of years ago, there was a news story about a crazy woman who gave birth on the subway, her placenta falling out onto the grooved flooring, sloshing all the way to the back of the car as the train decelerated. The possibilities for why ghost cars exist are endless. But it means that everyone standing on the platform has to board at different parts of the train.

When I found myself facing a ghost car this morning, forced to enter at the next car over, it was like stepping into an alternate universe. Whereas my morning commute is usually full of people quietly reading the Metro, this car was jumping with conversation. At the next stop, a gaggle of sporty 20-somethings hopped on and blocked the doors, looking for all purposes like they'd never ridden the subway before.

After blanking out for a few minutes, staring at an ad in Korean advocating for the vaccination of young children, I noticed that the members of the LL Bean All-Stars were each carrying Vineyard Fellowship messenger bags, which explained why they all looked like they were going on a hike at 9am on a Thursday; everyone was unemployed and had sought out religion to quell their destitute loneliness. For some reason I couldn't summon Grace Olivia Donovan, who usually moderates my desire to provoke religious types, so I spent the rest of the ride giving them the evil eye, hoping that I could burn the sin back into their souls.

Needless to say, I wasn't in a very chipper mood when I attempted to depart at my destination. As I tried to get off, I realized that this shaved-headed yuppie chap was blocking the doors with not one, but two huge duffel bags. Now what jackass gets on the subway and stands in front of the doors with difficult to move luggage? Apparently Shaved-Head Yuppie Man. Like, dude, couldn't you figure out that people would eventually need to leave the train on that side? Even if you had never even seen the inside of a subway car before, couldn't you have surmised that there were doors on both sides of the train for a reason?

When I went to exit, Shaved-Head Yuppie Man just stood there - made no motion to move his shit. I gave him a look that I hope made his singular ball retract back into his body. As people started to push past him, he finally got the message and gestured, albeit slowly, toward transporting his crapola somewhere else. But since the reason why the Yuppie Man's head was shaved was that he recently had a lobotomy, he couldn't figure out what to do with his belongings. So finally I solved the problem for him by straddling all of the bags to get onto the platform while whispering invectives under my breath and growling. As I turned around to give him one last withering stare, I noticed a tear in his eye and his lip quivering. I'm sure the Vineyard Fellowship LL-Bean All-Stars came to the rescue and lulled him back into oblivion by reading passages from the bibles they all had tucked into their pants (where the Lord works his magic as a makeshift chastity belt cod-piece).

Bon Voyage, Shaved-Head Yuppie Man. Bon Voyage.