I set out on foot this morning, with the forecast calling for like four inches of rain across the next 36 hours.
The walking conditions weren’t bad; a mist that never quite required an umbrella.
I had 15 minutes until the 8:43, which meant I had to hustle, but not sprint.
I paused for about 10 seconds to joke with neighbor Tea Party Steve–he’s just right of Attila the Hun, by his own description–and his irritable pit bull.
I got held up crossing Bradhurst at Amsterdam, which cost about 15 seconds.
I tied my show on a curb at Bradhurst and Memorial.
Had I avoided just one of the above, I would’ve made the 8:43.
I navigated the chopped up fallen trees clogging the shoulder on 141 approaching the post office, and hit Broadway just as my watch–set to the exact same time as time.gov–struck 8:40. Three minutes to walk a stretch that doesn’t quite take three minutes.
As my trust in the Timex Iron Man has waned a bit, I checked my cellphone–same spot-on time for like five years running–and got the same 8:40 reading.
Perhaps I lollygagged, it being Monday, us having entertained the eve before (hi Joey and John! Thanks for the dinosaur for Little G!), it being a dour, wet morning.
Either way, that 8:43 came chugging up when I was a good 150 feet from the pathway leading to the overpass. I looked at my Iron Man: 8:42:15.
I saw a man sprinting ahead of me from the Broadway Field parking lot. He had longish hair and an awkward gait that looked as though it had not been used since fall…2007.
“Noooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!!” he yelled like an Indian entering battle against Whitey.
He sprinted up the stairs. I hoped he had the bon homie to make the train and hold the door for his fellow straggler.
He sprinted down the stairs, me 10 stairs behind him. He hit the platform when the train pulled away.
“GOD FUCKING DAMNITTT!!!” he howled. I checked my Timex: 8:42:55.
The 8:43 is my slacker train to begin with, a once-a-week indulgence. The golden rule about the slacker train–don’t miss the damn thing.
I had 33 minutes to kill in Hawthorne, and “limited possibilities” doesn’t quite describe the setting. In terms of sitting down and consuming some sort of product, the lone option for the train area is the Punta Cana restaurant, which serves a Dominican breakfast.
I thought of Town Supervisor Maybury’s hope to turn the miserable old Hawthorne station house into something useable for commuters–a coffee shop, a reading room. My vote? A hot tub time machine.
Over the weekend, I’d urged The Missus to give Punta Cana (the restaurant, not the vacation destination) another chance after our oily first try. We called in our order and were told to arrive in 15. I got there in 15 and the food wasn’t ready.
“There’s Something About Mary” showed on the TV perched where the ceiling hits the wall. A different Farrelly Bros. movie came to mind after watching the two employees stumble through my order.
All told, I was out of there 15 minutes later than planned Saturday night.
If only Metro-North had been similarly late this morning.