F'd up

I never wrote up my last Yankee game, which was a week and a half ago. I'll talk to my therapist about whether I should revisit that one or not.

Anyway, I had a horrible commute this morning. We all have classic dilemmas that haunt us on regular basis... mustard or mayo? venti or grande? fastball or slider? Mine is switch to 2/3 train at 96th st or stay on until 59th?

I've been opting for 59th St for the past year or so, mainly because I'm too damn lazy to walk the extra 15 blocks or so that taking the 2 or 3 to Brooklyn entails. It's about 5 minutes faster, but a real bitch in the rain.

Anyway, things were fine until I got to Broadway/Lafayette for my transfer to the dreaded F. I knew something was wrong right away-- the silent crowd. Everybody huddled at the edge of the platform, afraid to say anything because they don't know anything. No barking announcements, no guys with orange ribbons explaining about an "incident" in Queens somewhere, just silence.

So I waited. And waited. I counted five D trains, four more B's, and three V trains (aka the "male nipple") until something finally came creaking down the local track. It was everyone's nemesis-- the C! That midget-sized cave-train that takes forever to get nowhere. Of course, I was perfectly positioned for an F (third door of the second-to-last car) and horribly positioned for a C. We all started running forward to get in that last car.

Not that I ever actually believed it was a C. I mean, here we were at B-Laf, where Cs don't exist. Yeah, it said C and the b*$%h on the mic said it was a C, but of course we'd be following the Culver line deep into Brooklyn, right? I mean, what's the point of running a C on the F line at 6, no 7 (at least!) in the morning?!

The C dumped us off at Jay St and staggered off into the hood. So we all waited again, for anything that would get us to friggin civilization. Finally, one of those "new" Fs rolled in, like a jerk in a new sweatsuit. Yes, it seemed like a legitimate option. We were gonna make it!

The train was a horror show. It was packed to the gills with people that I didn't even recognize as human, let alone American or New Yorker. Who were they and where did they come from? Queens?! Bayside? Who wears flipflops at 7:30 in the morning?

Worse yet was the stench? I quickly traced it to a bum lying right next to me on the brand new cyber-seat. He was wrapped in a Giants jacket, but don't you dare call this guy a fairweather fan-- this jacket was OLD. Like, pre-LT era. This derelict may have been a Gifford fan, in fact.

Worse still was the train itself. The new MTA trains really are wonders of design, but this one was a little off. The robot announcers were screwing up the stops so bad that we weren't even laughing-- I swear they called Carroll St "Newhouse Avenue". And these new trains are just not built for the rigors of the F course. The stretch from Jay St to 7th Avenue has to be one of the most treacherous in the system-- it's the Hillary Step of the subway system. I love the new trains, but they're just not built for this kind of travel. Between the swaying back and forth and the stink of Dave Jennings, I was ready to lose a few pounds all over my shoes.

Bad bad bad trip. I'm making a personal vow to transfer at 96th at least 75% of the time from now on. These kind of things just don't happen on the 2 train.

Departing time: 6:15 am
Arriving time: 8:00 am
Route: 1 to B to "C" to F
TOTAL TRIP: 1 hour 45 minutes