Shino

Day: Forty Four

Photo taken Tuesday, September 14, 2010 on the LIRR in Long Island City, NY around 645pm.

What are you still doing in the City Terminal Zone at 645pm at night, you ask? That's a very good question indeed. What am I still doing in Queens at this hour of night? And the answer is quite simple:

Nothing.

As you can plainly see I am doing absolutely nothing but sitting on a stationary train as other trains pass ours by. And by other trains I mean EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TRAIN COMING OUT OF PENN STATION.

As Bossdad walks me to the 86th Street Station after work today, we joke about the Port Jefferson line and how eastbound times are really quite ridiculous. The week I move to Smithtown, the LIRR cancels the 511pm train home which leaves me the choice of going to Penn Station for an earlier train or working later and taking one of three ridiculously late trains from Hunters Point, like who in the hell wants to take the 630pm? Why is that one even an option?!

Well it would have been a better option than the one I'm on at the moment as I watch the 630pm train pass us as we continue to sit in utter silence with no air conditioning and a nonworking engine. Not until 7pm do the geniuses of the LIRR decide that towing us back to Hunters Point seems like a good idea which I think is a fabulous idea since we have waited for every single Hunters Point train to leave so we can be stranded with no trains at all (meaning back to the city we'll go!). Though they assure us there will be a train to Huntington for us when we get back to the station which I think is a perfect solution for all of us commuters that ride this specific express train to pass Huntington in order to get to the stations after Huntington since ALL OF US LIVE PAST HUNTINGTON!

As we board the train to Huntington I grumble that I would be in Smithtown by now if it wasn't for the conductor who knew there was definitely something wrong with the train but chose to drive it conveniently down the track far enough away that it stranded us for over an hour. They then keep us at the station for an additional 20 minutes just because, and then proceed to tells us (after the doors close tightly) that we will be making additional stops before Huntington so (no) passengers on this train can get off. I think it is very generous of the LIRR to make additional stops for the invisible commuters on our express train.

So now we get to Huntington and they kick us off the train to wait for another one to take us to our respective (real) stops.

And we wait for an additional 15 minutes for said train to get here, all the while they keep apologizing to us. They can stuff their sorries in a sack and buy me dinner instead since I chose today to not pack myself dinner and instead drink something before getting on which definitely proves to be my best commuting idea yet.

I already think it's unfair every day when I get home at the reGoddamdiculous hour of 730pm to start my night so you can only imagine what I'm feeling as I enter my house at 910pm. Let's just say, our apartment complex might be rethinking those quiet hours starting at 10pm...