No F'ing Way

As promised, I'll be detailing my daily transit commute on a regular basis (I guess "daily" implies regularity.

Today's fiasco took place in the A.M., as opposed to the usual late afternoon nightmare. The Monday after Thanksgiving is never easy-- I was already running late before I got out the front door. After four days in a row with Lee Jr., it's just so hard to say goodbye... (sniff, sniff)

Nothing notable until I started dozing off at the 4th Avenue stop. Not sure how long I "walked the dog" for, but at some point I realized we weren't moving at all. Then the dreaded announcement pierced the elevated platform stop:

"This Coney Island-bound F Train is being taken out of service, due to a sick passenger on board. We have a sick passenger on board this F Train, and we're awaiting arrival of medical assistance. We recommend you find alternate means of travel, such as transferring to the..."

Alternate means of travel?! Helicopter? Zeppelin? Retro-booster backpack? No thanks-- I'll just sit here on the train and wait it out.

After two F's sped by on the center track, I began to consider my alternatives. I also wondered about this "sick passenger"-- it was a little early for a drunk puker. My money was on "dead passenger".

If you've seen the morning BK-bound F ridership lately, you know what I'm talking about. I've seen landfill-style garbage heaps, pools of blood (literally), mini-colonies of tubercular street urchins... and this is all between East Broadway and York St! It's really getting scary.

Either way, I bounded down the stairs to grab a bus. I caught a B75 just in the nick, and started to mentally cut my losses. Then we turned off from 9th St via detour, and there went my morning. Our busful of F transplants let out a collective groan, and some idiot squawked, "No, they really are doing street repairs. I've seen it!" Gee, thanks.

Departing time: 6:35 am
Arriving time: 7:55 am
Route: 1 to A to F to B75
TOTAL TRIP: 1 hour 20 minutes