Honest Bum

My friend Jess was walking to the train and encountered a bum singing near the stairs that lead up to the train. The bum was singing(while shaking a coffee cup)," I steal anything, even yo baby. BUUUUTTTT I don't wanna steal for Christmas,NOOOOOOOOO I don't wanna steal for Christmas. So give me your money!!!. YEEEEAAaaaahhHHHHH (chorus x2) I wonder if this is the same bum I once saw last winter at the same entrance tap dancing on the metal coverings to the basement. He may have changed up his marketing strategy this year.

The Train Bearing Gifts

I find it hilarious, that as I left school I was telling my friend Jana about different train stories, mostly lewd ones that involved genitalia. My point is that I walked to the train soon after and had one of the worst yet so bad it was good train rides ever. You know what I'm talking about the super packed - because you know people have been waiting for at least half an hour for it and don't want to wait for the next one- train. Yeah that one. So, I squeeze on with my two huge bags and try to hold them near the front of me as I try to hold onto a pole where 6 other hands are holding on for dear life. Did I mention this is the J train at Essex stop, the stop where you always hope the Z express is still running. Why? Because it cuts my commute to almost half but its sort of like the ghost train that never comes. Anyway, as we cross the Williamsburg Bridge I have two middle aged men discussing their winning tactics of "Dungeons and Dragons" but in a rather jibberish sort of English. One had a really awful stutter yet somehow was able to utter,"Yo, I kill them niggas everyday!" The other guy just plain seemed to mumble everything out of his mouth but somehow I understood their lingo of the game. At first, it was amusing but after 20 minutes of hearing this conversation I could feel the smoke coming out of my ears because they were talking as loud as they could to try to impress these younger girls sitting right in front of them. While this is going on there is a lady literally pushing into my side trying to reach for the pole that was already covered in hands. She was literally on my back and all the while had she turned around to look she might have seen there was a pole behind her that she was blocking for others to grab onto.
Finally Broadway Junction comes and somehow in this mess a seat that one lady was taking up myself and another girl managed to make it into two seats. I'm sitting there thinking ok this train is going local for 6 more stops and I'm off of here but then all of a sudden the conductor says," This is the J train to Queens the next stop is CRESCENT, this train is going express." Mothereffin music to my ears because thats my STOP!!! While this train is rushing to my stop a phone rings and a girl answers, its her boyfriend. You can clearly hear him asking her who is she with and where is she at? She says," I'm with Shawna and we fixin to go to the movies for her birthday." Train is packed so there is a lot of background noise men and women etc. You hear the voice on the other end say," What is all that noise and who is that?!" She starts to explain and it sounds like he cuts her off and she says to him," I'm on the train with Shawna its her birthday, no we are still on the train. How can you NOT believe me!?" Yes, she's standing right in front of me yelling into her phone, she even got a little spittle on me too. Her friend then proceeds to yell into the receiver," Yo, niggas is mad stupid! Don't worry dude I'm going to take care of her real good!! " I'm sitting there trying not to laugh but the rest of the women sitting next to me are laughing. The guy hangs up on her twice and she kept calling him back. As the train gets to my stop I turn to the girl next to me and tell her to have a good night, we had been talking the entire way while all of this was happening. As I got up I said, " This is the train bearing gifts tonight, mostly unwanted ones. Happy Holidays. " She laughs and says," Good night homie."  Wait, I'm not done although I thought the madness was over. There were so many people trying to get off at my stop and there was this woman who refused to let go of a pole to let people by so people were literally having to walk under her arm and some were too big to do so and just pushed her aside and she's yelling," These people pushin me out the way I can't hold on!!" She tried to block me and I said to her," Why don't you wait until everyone gets off of the train before hanging onto a pole, how does you holding on now make sense?" Poor lady, I had been holding it in the entire ride and I made sure I left that frustration on the train and let her have it. hahahah! Happy Finals and Happy Holidays!!!

Gummin' It

 The usual, I'm running late to my 9 am class. I'm on the Z train on my way into Manhattan from Brooklyn and we make it to Marcy Ave. and I'm standing there holding on to the pole above me. Just barely because I'm vertically challenged as most of us know. I look across the platform and see an older man walk towards the trash can. As he gets nearer, he pulls out his dentures and precedes to vomit. He's within 3 feet of three elderly Asian women and they are oblivious to him upchucking in the corner. He finishes his business, wipes the side of his mouth with his sleeves walks away and PLOPS his dentures back into his mouth. *sigh* Gotta love this place.

Pistol Pete and his Moby Wrap

So, there is a guy standing directly in front of me on the crowded 1 train coming downtown from Upper West Side. I don't recall the stop(about 5 years ago) we were at but it was somewhere near midtown. He has his baby in what seemed like a Moby wrap in the front of him. The train is crowded it's rush hour and people as usual are packing in because they don't want to wait for the next train, which we all know is directly behind that one 99% of the time(and probably empty). A lady literally pushes him out of the way by pushing him where the baby is attached to him. He precedes to tell her,"You know what you're a bitch. You can't see I got my baby right here, you pushed him to move me out of your way!" and her response is," You're a bitch." He then says," I don't give a shit I'll slap you!" She responds with," I will slap your goddamned face!" Yes, folks the baby is literally in the crossfire of this altercation. I'm directly behind him thinking,"Why can't I just be on the other side of this train?" (Which is usually the case when I'm in the presence of these incidents.) This altercation goes on for what seems an eternity and I'm sure it was all but 3 minutes. Then the the guy tells her he's going to kill her and I'm thinking,"OH SHIT, this can't be heading in a good direction." The guy with the baby, YES, I repeat the guy with the baby pulls out a GUN and points it at her. The woman looked like she literally shit her pants. Everyone in the train literally squeezed in the other end of the train. Someone yells in the background," Damn, dude you can have my seat!" Within seconds we reached what I remember was 34th street Madison Square Garden, everyone ran out of the train in shock. Needless to say that woman ran as quickly as she could to get away from him. I'm sure she'll think the next time she selfishly pushes someone to get on a train. He put his gun away and stayed on the car,which was next to empty. I'm by no means justifying what he did but, I find humor in this in a way that you laugh at the stupid things people will kill each other over. I know most of you are going to have a different perception of NYC but its not always like this I think my luck happens to fall along the lines of ALWAYS running into the craziest folks riding the trains. For the most part this place is a great place to be but you're going to have  those rare occasions when someone gets crunk when you least expect it. You just better have some comfortable shoes to run out of the train!

Going from a Driver City to a Subway/Taxi City

I came to NYC to work for an Americorp program called CityYear and of course living on the small stipend they provide you with you wouldn't be able to survive by having a car in the city. Also, its just impractical to have one unless you can afford the 300-500 dollar per month parking lot fees. So, the only practical thing to do here is take the train. City Year gave us a FREE monthly metro card for 11 months   and you have to take public transportation to get to your work sites, so really its not such a bad deal. I'll explain further by adding that I am originally from Texas and we drive EVERYWHERE there.

So, stranger interaction was a rare occurrence. So, it was an immediate culture shock, to say the least, to have my world collide with so many strangers every day on the trains. I've been here 5 1/2 years now and have had insane interactions with complete strangers on the subway and I normally share it with the few people I know appreciate the stories. Now here I am wanting to share it with EVERYONE via the Internet. I will do my best to keep up with new stories and also share old ones as well. I love to hear anyone else's experience taking the train. Most of mine are hilarious and disgusting, so you best have a spew bag or have a sense of humor because some of these stories can be awful(in a good way). Stay tuned!!!