Yesterday, at about 5:00 p.m., I was waiting on the platform at 59th and Lexington for the downtown 6 subway. I was waiting all the way at the front of the platform, and there were some open seats on the few benches that were there, so I sat down and listened to some Foo Fighters on my iPod.  Since it’s a Sunday schedule, and I had just missed a train, I knew it would be about 10 to 15 minutes before the next one came.

As I was sitting there, some of the seats on the benches started to fill up with shoppers, but the seat next to me remained unoccupied (did I smell?).  Then, just as a song was ending, I noticed an older man and woman approach my bench, the man taking the empty seat next to me.  Since the older woman had no where to sit, I got up and gave her my seat.

Because the song on my iPod just ended, I could hear when the lady and man looked at the person next to them on the bench and said, “I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be rude?”

It makes me kind of sad that we have such a bad reputation.

P.S. Is it me, or was the older man rude by not allowing the woman the empty seat?

I was on my way to work one day, and as I descended the subway steps to the N, R, and W line, I noticed that a train was waiting on the platform with the doors open.  I ran down the steps and toward the door to the train.

Being that it was the morning and my mind was not up to speed yet, I forgot that I’m 6’6” and on those lines I must lower my head a little bit to get in without knocking myself out.

There were two hits.

The first was my head hitting the top of the door.  The second was my body hitting the ground.  I was stunned that one moment I was running for the train, and the next I was looking up at the ceiling of the platform with pain coming from my forehead.  The lower half of my body was in the train, while the rest of me was on the platform.

The doors tried to close, but my waist prevented them.  Someone on the train asked if I was OK.  I said that I thought so as I tried to raise myself from my inclined position.  I managed to get up and get in the car before the doors tried to close again.

I developed a small bump on my head that lasted for six days as a result of the incident.

I’ve learned that I should no longer run for a train.  If I make it, I make it.  If not, another one will be along in a few minutes.

It’s about 8:30am on a weekday morning, and I’m on my way to work.  It’s early March, and the Winter has been relatively mild.  The temperature is in the mid-forties.

As the subway approached the 23rd Street stop, I started to move into position to exit the car.  So did others.  The doors opened, and we all made to move to get out.  As I was leaving the car, just as I was about the move my left foot from behind me to in front of me, the person behind me managed to step on the back of my foot and pin my shoe to the floor.  I fell forward, out of my shoe, and out of the car.  I managed to get up and start to go back for my shoe, but alas, I was too late.  The doors closed.

I waited right next to the door hoping that it would open quickly enough for me to get my foot in there to keep it from closing, and someone on the inside would hand me my shoe.  No such luck.  The subway started to move, and my shoe was on a nice little trip to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Dejected, I trudged to work.  My little toes got quite cold during the four block walk to my office.  I must have looked a little funny walking around without a shoe, but this is NYC, people have seen a lot weirder.

After getting to work, and enduring quite a few comments about my lack of attire (“what, you get dressed in the dark?”, “Can’t afford two shoes?”, etc.) I started to do some work until 10am when the shoe store a few blocks away would open.

After walking over to the shoe store and finding a pair of shoes that I liked, the salesperson asked what happened to my shoe.  I explained, and he told me that I was about the fourth person that year that he had seen with the same problem.

At least I’m not alone.

One weekday, I was at the 57th and 7th station of the N & R subway line heading downtown.  I was at the top of the stairs to the subway platform when I noticed a train had just pulled in.  I ran down the steps as fast as I could, and got into the train just as the doors closed.

Since it was midday, there was no problem finding a seat.  As I sat down, I heard a very audible “rip”.  I looked around, and a women near me said, “Sounds like you ripped something.”  I asked her if I were to stand up if she could see if I ripped my pants (jeans).  She said sure.  I stood up, and she told me that my pants were fine.  I checked my shirt, jacket, etc. but could not find the rip.  Then she suggested it might be my underwear.  Here I am in the middle of the New York City Subway, and I have to figure out if my underwear is ripped.  So, I nonchalantly sit down and put my hand down the back of my pants, and, sure enough, my boxers were very ripped.

Now, on a normal day, I wouldn’t care, but that day was not a normal day.  I had a doctors appointment that afternoon, and there was a very slight chance that he could ask me to remove my pants during the examination.  Luckily, there is a Gap store about two blocks from my office.

I ran over there after getting out of the subway, found a pair of boxers and went to the cash register.  The cashier took my boxers and asked if that was all.  I said, “Yes”, and then realized that when a man buys only one pair of boxers in the Gap, it could look like he had an “accident”.  So I sort of related the whole story of ripping my current pair in the subway.  She just looked at me through the whole story like I was crazy.  Then she said, “I don’t think your girlfriend’s gonna buy that story”.  To which I explained that the story is all true.  I even offered to take my pants off right there to prove it.

She declined.