My baby takes the morning TRAIN.

Part 2 of funny things that happen on the train is about to commence. i hope you are ready.

Well, first, last week i saw a man drinking rice waiting for the j train. like... drinking it. that's not funny at all. i was pretty horrified.

A couple weeks ago I had a rather frustrating trip home due to construction and weekend changes i had forgotten about. i ended up taking the brooklyn bound j train from E.Broadway to Jay street transferring to the A to broadway junction and transferring to the J train which takes me to my apartment. Also, I didn't have my ipod, and we all know how anxious i get on 1 hour train rides that should take 20 minutes without a little muzak to settle my nerves. Yes, it was probably easier to walk the 8 blocks from Drew's apartment to the J train. but i was wearing heals. and... then i would have never met the wonderful woman who was singing a song (that i'm assuming she wrote) that goes a little something like this: cus i gots to pop it. cus i gots to drop it. drop it. drop it. drop it.
I forgot how it actually went. but i know the drop it part was in there multiple times. and i know it wasn't "my lipstick is poppin" or "pop lock and drop it" or "drop it like its hot" or any of the songs that exist outside that woman's head. I tried my hardest to watch the dance that inevitably accompanied this song, but there was some asshole blocking my vision. This woman got off at Jay street as well and started saying "quarter-quarter-quarter-quarter." I looked and she had this huge tangled mess of brown strings. Ok. it is totally worth a quarter to buy whatever it is that she's selling. I gave her a dollar. she did not give me change (rude). I was gonna offer for her to keep the $.75 anyway, but still. Turns out it wasn't the whole clump of strings she was selling, but just one... very simply braided into a bracelet.

 

Best dollar i've spent in a while. and luckily i didn't get her song stuck in my head for very long (unfortunately not long enough to still remember it, but also not long enough to annoy the shit out of me and possibly ruin my day. a fine line). it somehow morphed into Beyonce's "Diva" relatively quickly.

It reminded me of one of my top two favorite train moments ever occuring about a year and a half ago. It was fall, and there was this group of 17 year old kids talking about funny things that happened in their church choir rehearsal that day. for no reason whatsoever it really pissed me off. I'm generally a supporter of teens engaging in positive after school activities. then they started actually singing. They were actually pretty good. still. ugh. Every stop of the local 'A' train was an internal battle of trying to decide if i should jump to the next car and try to struggle to find a seat on a crowded train, or stay seated after a long day of work and attempt to put up with the gay youth. I mean happy. Luckily, i stayed. because guess what happened next. a homeless woman began singing along. now she was rocking the lead to whatever gospel song they were singing at the moment and DANCING while the kids were supplying some good A Capella backup vox and a steady beat. This brought quite the smile to my face. She then informs us that she writes her own music, and starts singing the tune of jingle bells, but lyrics about being in a woman's shelter and regaining ownership of her life. only, of course the lyrics didn't make sense. and unfortunately it was pretty evident she did not have much control of her life. i would pay any amount of money to have had a way to record that. then there's a dance break. I'm gonna do my best to describe this, so bear with me. and maybe after this story you'll be motivated to bare with me (a little joke for you English majors out there). The lady gets down on the ground. of the subway. in the 'push up' position and starts basically humping the ground, but in a circular motion. first clock wise, then counter (a la Alex Sedrowski doing the Backstreet Boys dance for those lucky enough to have witnessed that). This is the best subway ride of my life at that point. But don't worry, it gets better. A homeless man comes over and tells her that she doesn't know what she's doing and that he can do better. He says he won't do it for free, but after enough coaxing, he sure as hell does. A homeless dance off on the subway. right in front of my seat. I am audibly laughing. i cannot contain my joy. Then they start singing again. The man is doing his best to sing along to Jingle Bells. only he doesn't speak English. So he's making up words not even i can make out even though he's standing directly above me, holding on to the pole above my head. What i do know is that there are parts of that song that he is singing directly to me, and without a second thought i join right in for the audience participation parts. he says laughing all the way (or something close to that) and i say "HA HA HA" he says oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh and i yell "HEY!" Who knew the Holiday spirit could completely sweep over an entire 4 benches of a subway car in the middle of October. I heart New York.

I guess what the moral of the story is that even on the worst rides, open your G.D. eyes because something amazing could happen at any moment. You, too, could be the proud owner of a $.25 bracelet possibly made out of some homeless lady's weave or find yourself in a sing-a-long/dance-off with 2 homeless people on a breezy Autumn New York day.