As it was, I just hit the radio and clung to the last remaining vestiges of my recurring dream of being recruited into Rockapella.
As we got ready I picked up Declan to put into the car seat. He looked up at me, with his big round eyes, and contemplated my face for a minute. This should have been my second tip off. He grinned, putting me off guard, so I smiled back at him. He slowly raised his little arm and reached out to my face.
My fatherly instincts took over. “Awwww, wook at the cute wittle baby! He’s going to give his daddy a hug! Cute wittle baby! I’ll give you a hug!”
“Perfect” Thought the baby, “Now is my chance! I’ll show him for talking cutsie to me!”
And with that he brought his steel-forged pincers to bear on my mouth and cheek, as if to wrench them from my face.
I cried out in pain (cute wittle babies, after all, aren’t supposed to possess either guile or brute force) and did my best to extricate my face from his hands without defacing myself. The little baby cooed, smiled, and giggled.
Reaching into my effervescing reserves of patience, I tried to impress upon him the undesireability of defacing one’s father. This came in the form of a couple hand taps that were intended to be a gentle reprimand.
Upon receiving the hand taps (which he dexterously avoided) he looked up at me with a cute grin, as though we were playing pat-a-cake.
“Oh funny man , you must possess a death wish,” he thought. “Do you not realize that I am far more clever and devious than even the most conniving of cats? Soon, you will fall and I will rule the roost!”
Concealing my hurt pride as Becky and Maddie walked into the kitchen, I smiled, and proceeded to place the baby inside the car seat (which in and of itself is a story for another day), pile into our small Saturn, and wend our way to the station.
By this time, I had effectively triple checked my wallet to make sure that I was carrying my monthly train pass. Indeed, yes, indeed I was. I kissed my family good-bye and sauntered over to the platform to await the arrival of the next express train to Grand Central. I noticed a few people pulling out their wallets and double-checking their monthly passes. “Ah,” I said to myself, “these unlucky souls also have a history of forgetting their passes.”
As these unfortunate souls checked and double checked, their wallets became alive with a shimmering, yellow blur. It was as if the wheat fields were shimmering in the Summer sun, a beautiful sight, made all the more beautiful because we’re in the middle of winter. Winter where the only color on the trees is green, like my ticket. Wait, my ticket is GREEN…aw man, my TICKET IS GREEN! In my excitement of enjoying sleep, I had not realized that it was indeed an entirely new and different month. It was FEBRUARY. My green January pass would not be accepted on the train (just now approaching the station).
Quick as a flash I flew up the stairs into the train station above (yes, above the platform and no, the platform is not underground). To my horror I saw that everyone else had already noticed that it was February and was filed in long lines at the ticket counter and ticket vending machines. I was going to be late on Friday. Again.
But then, I spotted it! Beautiful, shinning, shimmering, and there was only one person at it. What luck! A ticket machine that hardly anyone was at! In fact, now that I had said that, the person walked angrily away. He obviously must have been late too.
Proudly I stepped up to the glimmering grey machine to complete my purchase. I selected a monthly ticket from Stamford to Grand Central, added a $45 subway card on the back of it, and placidly punched the “pay now” option on the screen.
The screen replied back, “We’re sorry. At this time this machine is temporarily unable to dispense monthly tickets.”
My native New Yorker took over inside my brain. “What kind of nincompoop allows me to even select that type of ticket if I can’t even purchase it? Whose brilliant idea was that? That’s ridiculous! Why, I’m going to write a letter to the…”
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK….”
And with that the train was gone.
I rolled the dice and tried to buy a one way ticket to Grand Central.
“Attention passengers, the next train due to arrive on Track 3 will be your 7:42 express to Grand Central Station. It is operating 2 to 5 minutes late”
I still had a chance. Lady luck was on my side, for less than 30 seconds later, I was walking back down those same stairs to platform #3 to await the coming of the next express train, one-way ticket in hand! If I couldn’t be triumphant in everything that morning, at least I could be triumphant about getting to work before 9:00 am.
I was so proud of my little victory over the unreliable ticket machine, that I reached into my pocket to fish out my phone and text Becky of my prowess in outsmarting the vending machine’s machinations to keep me off of the train.
A funny thing about cold mornings is that winter gloves become a necessity. They also are rather unwieldy and can make things difficult to grasp.
Triumphantly, I grasped my shinning blue phone, to proudly tell of my victory of the evil vending machine, and make known my exploits! And the wind gently carried my frail ticket slowly down to the track below. It fluttered, spun, and swayed gently in the light, frigid, breeze and came to rest 6 feet below me.
Without pausing to think I leapt off the platform, down to the unusually large gravel below, and snatched up my ticket. The brilliant lights of the oncoming express train bore down on me, and I had only seconds to react. I bounded across the tracks to the platform, placed my arms on it and tried to swing myself up. Unfortunately, my backpack was on my back and it was too full to allow for such a brilliant, and life-saving, maneuver. Instead it tipped me backward and I fell with a thud to the unusually large gravel. With only seconds to spare, I rolled under the platform with just enough time to barely miss the train speeding by. It was an express, you see, and it did not stop. Once it passed, I scrambled out and rushed back to the platform to await the next train. Fortunately the employees hadn’t been notified of my anticts, and I could resume my day without further incident...
I shook my head, still looking down at the ticket on the tracks, and snapped back to consciousness from my heroic, adrenaline junkie, horror-induced daydream and stared down at the track below. There were signs posted everywhere that said, “Never Go Down to the Tracks for Any Reason!” So I figured I could comply. I saw a conductor coming down the stairs and asked him, “What would one do if one’s ticket were to, hypothetically speaking, fall onto the track?”
“You mean like that ticket right there?”
“Yup.”
“We’ll, I’d go get it if there wasn’t a non-stop express just about to come by and if my leg weren’t still suffering the lingering effects of an injury. Tell you what, I’ll just print off another ticket for you.”
“Thank you so much.”
He handed me the ticket and I boarded the train on the other track.
I guess that’s what I get for not listening to the news of the morning, letting me know that I need a new monthly ticket.
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