It was the first day with the new schedules and all, and anxiety ran a bit high. Would those new Mount Kisco people make for a crowded train? Would we be pulling into strange Grand Central tracks that made our commute a minute or two longer?
The train left Hawthorne and the mechanical narrator said, “Next stop, Mount Pleasant.”
First, some background. The Mount Pleasant stop is at the nexus of a few giant graveyards. The platform is about the size of a surfboard. And I’ve never stopped there. I believe the train makes occasional weekend stops there to accommodate funerals, but otherwise bypasses it entirely.
But just this morning, the disembodied train voice said we were stopping in Mount Pleasant, and the orange electronic ticker indicated same. This was good and bad. On the good side, it’s sort of close to where I live. On the not so good side, I didn’t want the extra two minutes of a stop added on each day.
We rolled into Mount Pleasant, and we rolled out of Mount Pleasant, without even slowing down. Completely disregarding his previous statement, the mechanical voice stated, “Next stop, Valhalla,” same as he does every day.
And that was that.