The best part of the New York Subway system, by far, is the moment the 4 train emerges from the underground tunnel to the immediate the view of sunshine over Yankee Stadium at 161st Street. It’s a great sight.

How people can sleep on a train is beyond me. It’s unsteady. It’s loud. The seats are uncomfortable. People can get past all that – but they really, really shouldn’t. Someone I know once told me the loud noises of the train were “hypnotic.” Have you ever seen someone who has been hypnotized? It’s not pretty. Neither is sleeping on public transportation.

My two favorite examples:

• The portly man, head tilted back, mouth wide-open, loud consistent breaths, and a little trail of drool making its way past the cold sore on the right side of his mouth. This isn’t the image this guy should be putting on display for others. If only his wife could see him now.
• Men aren’t the only ones. I saw a woman the other day snoring, with her head slowly falling down, and snapping back up once her chin hits her chest, repeating this motion every 15 seconds. It’s amazing to me that she doesn’t wake herself up when her head snaps back and hits the seat. It certainly looks jarring enough. (if I were to fall off my bed and hit my head on the nightstand, I would probably wake up).

A good way to kill time on a long train ride (other than drinking) is a little game of “Guess the profession.” Warning: this is game is based completely on stereotypes. Construction workers and Wall Street brokers are the easiest to identify, for obvious reasons. Other easy ones to pinpoint are food service employees (hairnets), computer programmers (nerds), porn stars (mustaches), and people in advertising (completely miserable).

About 10 years ago, the LIRR kicked off the “Clean Train Campaign.” A clever little line when it was originally introduced. All these years later, I get the feeling riders purposely litter to spite the “Clean Train Campaign,” because they are so sick of hearing about it. Imagine hearing the same thing at least twice a day, five days a week, for 10 years. It’s almost as bad as Stuart Scott still milking his “Cooler than the other side of the pillow” catch-phrase from the 80’s. Please…come up with new material.

I hate everything about mornings, especially my bathroom. My bathroom is the darkest room of the house with no windows. I dread going in there after I wake up, knowing that I must flick on a light switch that will blind me. During this temporary blackout, I am usually prone to losing balance and bumping into something sharp, causing me to writhe in pain and curse at myself looking at myself in the mirror through squinted eyes. Happens almost every day. I started wearing sunglasses to the john. Seriously.

Some guy sneezed so powerfully that he shot a huge loogie onto my friend’s pant leg from 3 seats away on the train. She didn’t even notice. But some “good Samaritan” was nice enough to point it out and give her a napkin. I think I would rather not know, and say “what the hell is this” later when it’s dried out and less disgusting.

A friend of mine walked up on the gay & lesbian pride parade recently in NYC and decided to stay and watch for a bit.

Dying to tell someone about what she was witnessing, she sent texted me (unfortunately). The first one read, “assless  chaps!” A text soon followed with an additional observation…”visible balls.”

Gross.

My strangest subway experience…the global no-pants-subway-ride…

Here is a link to the story as well…

I’m amazed that sewer rats have no fear whatsoever of oncoming subway trains.  They just go about their business as speeding locomotives rumble right past their heads.  No big whup.

I was in the best shape of my life when I lived on Long Island and took the LIRR.  I had to park about a mile away from the station and run the 200-yard dash to catch the train every morning.  I don’t know why I even showered.  I was covered in sweat shortly after anyway.