Maybe this has been going on for a while, but I never noticed it before: Ads running the length of the downtown-bound 4 (or was it 5?) train out of Grand Central/42nd. The ads were for Monroe College and said things like “Watch the Opening Doors…Career Opportunities Await” or somesuch.

Oddly, the ads were positioned along the bottom 10-12 inches of the subway. So if there’s a huge enrollment influx of rats at Monroe College come fall, we’ll know the ad campaign has been successful.

Why is it that the first trip to the city after an extended break is an awful ride that makes you wish you were still away? Metro-North was perfectly grand this morning, the 8:43 out of Hawthorne getting in to GCT several minutes early.

I schlepped down to the 6 train below Grand Central. Within a few minutes, the man on the loudspeaker said the local was approaching 42nd.

The lights illuminated the tunnel off in the distance a moment later, and we climbed on board.

I had the iPod on at a very low volume. It was on Shuffle and I believe the song at that moment was Cake’s “Never There”, which would’ve been better suited for those mornings when the 6 is but a rumor.

Apparently the iPod was not on low enough. As the doors were about to close, I noticed a few dozen people remained on the platform, though the train was not full. I was about to ask a fellow rider if the train was going express, but the four people around me all had earphones on too–middle aged white woman with an iPod, black man with big DJ cans, 20something doofus guy and 30something white lady with iPods.

The doors shut and we were off.

The digital scoreboard on the train said the next stop was 33rd Street, so I put my express train fears aside. As we approached 33rd, the robot voice said the next stop was, indeed, 33rd.

Alas, we only slowed at 33rd and kept going.

I held out hope that we might stop at 28th–the next stop and, more importantly, my stop. The scoreboard shifted to 28th Street as the next stop, and the robot voice announced it as well.

No dice, we chugged along. And so went the pattern all the way to 14th: Orange letters, loudspeaker, and on through the next local stop. It was my own fault for not paying attention to any announcements, but I didn’t get much help from the fake 6 train’s orange updates, or the Mechanical Man on the Mike.

I jumped off at Union Square and waited impatiently for the next uptown 6.

9:30 this morning, huge crowd heading down to the 4-5-6 trains under Grand Central.

There’s an ugly jam-up at the stairs. The 5 has just left, but it appears to have been several minutes since a 6 pulled in, and impatient would-be straphangers are massed on the platform, contributing to the bottleneck.

Then the jam’s true culprit becomes apparent. At the bottom of the stairs, a man sits. He’s got dreadlocks and a colorful pair of boxers, his jeans way, way below the waist level. He’s sleeping on the bottom step.

The man ahead of me, a stone-faced suit, hits the guy in the back of the head as he passes. I can’t say for sure it was intentional, but smart money says it was the sort of tap a hockey defenseman gives a forward who’s camped too close to the crease.

The slumbering fool is more or less something you see every day, until I realize what, other than the bright boxers, the man is wearing. It’s the blue pinny of one of those community associations–the men (and I presume women) who are hired to wear brightly colored pinnies and sweep streets, sidewalks and subway platforms.

After the day laborer took the shot to the head, he opened his eyes, looked around, and went back to sleep.

A couple funny transit-related items in today’s Dear Diary section of the NY Times.

Dear Diary:

I am a lawyer who often commutes to Lower Manhattan from New Jersey by motorcycle.

On a Wednesday in mid-June, I was stopped for a light on Lafayette Street, waiting to turn onto the Brooklyn Bridge to get to an appearance in Brooklyn.

Another biker, dressed in denim and leather, pulled up alongside me, gave me a rather disdainful look and said: “Nice bike. Lose the suit.”

My terse response — “Parole hearing” — was sufficient to restore me to the ranks of the brethren. I was rewarded with a knowing nod of the head, a wry smile and a heartfelt, “Good luck, brother.”Jerry Oleske

Dear Diary:

Overheard on a subway platform during the morning rush, after exiting the No. 5 train at Fulton Street, not too far from City Hall:

A woman dressed in a business suit is holding a subway map, looking quizzically at a transit worker, apparently having just asked him a question.

As I walk by, the transit worker is providing his answer: “Department of Labor? You mean for giving birth or for work-related issues?”Alyson Shatsky