The woman who picked up someone’s discarded Google Maps directions on the subway platform yesterday.

It was the 6 train around 6 p.m. You were about 45, with frosty blonde hair, white pants (way, way after Labor Day!) cut in a mom-jeans style (high waist, baggy legs, tapered ankle), only corduroy, and a cardigan with square shoulders and an argyle design.

You had the slightly frazzled look of a Midwestern middle school teacher, or a woman whose siblings have just now suggested she do a little time in a nearby psychiatric center. Just a few days of rest, they offer perkily…

There was a folded sheet of paper with what looked like directions from Google Maps on the ground. They sat in front of an attractive blonde woman, in stylish flared jeans and black boots with a dangerous-looking heel, who rummaged through her purse as it rested on her thigh. I walked by and was tempted to say something to her, because it appeared she may have dropped the directions, and because she was attractive.

As I got closer, I saw that the paper was right in front of the flared-jeans woman; if it was hers, she surely would’ve seen it there on the ground. I stayed silent.

Then you came walking down the platform, Midwestern Wearer of Mom Cords. You strode toward the folded sheet of paper, and in a single fluid motion, bent to pick it up. Only you didn’t deposit it in the nearest trash receptable; no, you opened the paper as you kept walking. As you reached the end of the platform–the very end, where the homeless and the rats go–you studied it carefully.

Were you some spy caught up in a clandestine cloak-and-dagger operation? Your cover sure fooled me (Mom cords! Genius!).

Or were you simply nosy, wondering with Mitty-esque curiousity where somebody with a more interesting life was planning on traveling to this evening?

Did you, in fact, hop into a cab after exiting the subway and direct the driver toward this illicit destination? Did you show up at the party full of strangers, standing out in your frumpy attire in a room full of hipsters, suits or ethnic types?

What did you talk about?

And where did you get those pants?

Sincerely,

Trainjotting