TOOTHOPOLIS

Go Outside Today

So I get on the F at East Broadway — immediately suspicious because the train’s just sitting there in the station, doors wide open, full of people. Still, I thank my luck and hop in, find a seat (clue #2?), and start reading my book. Seconds pass. Then minutes. “Attention all passengers attention all passengers. Because of delays in the trains ahead of us we are being held momentarily in the station we will be moving shortly thank you for your patience.”

Riiiiiight.

TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, after a jerky and stilted ride for the three physical blocks between East Broadway and Delancey, I arrive at the Delancey station. The doors open. For some reason I’m still sitting there (OK, the book is really good — “Everything Bad Is Good for You,” by Steven Johnson). And sitting. More announcements. More delays. “Attention all passengers attention all passengers. Because of delays in the trains ahead of us we are being held momentarily in the station we will be moving shortly thank you for your patience.”

My patience evaporates.  I jump up — having miraculously reached my limit — and leave the station, climbing the forty-nine staircases out of Delancey and outside.

What. A. Sublimely. Gorgeous. Day.

A zigzag walk to Lafayette & Houston to catch the B/D. Smiling people everywhere, all of us amazed that Summer’s beginning again. The Eldrige Street synagogue.  The Nike soccer field on Allen, gloriously empty and springy under my feet. Dog-walkers. Hi-fivers. Sun-glassers. Cart-wheelers. Lo-riders. 

I dive grinning into the station and head down to the B/D. But the F’s running smoothly now, as if a plumber had come and unclogged the tunnel with a snake. I even let the first F pass, wary of being screwed again.

It’s one of those new F trains, designed so that there’s nowhere to sit. But there are plenty of seats.

So I sit down,
think twice about opening my book,
and write this to you on my Blackberry instead.