I don’t know that this has ever happened to me in my seven years of using a MetroCard.

I made my way to the turnstile under Grand Central this morning, en route to the 6.

I saw the massive lines for new monthly tickets, and patted myself on the back for having had the forethought to bring my August ticket this morning.

Alas, the turnstile turned out to be a spurnstile.

“Already Expired,” read the digital reader after I ran my card through the turnstile.

Expired?

I have four MetroCards in my wallet right now, six if you include the ones offering their services on the flipside of my July and August train passes. All four have some degree of value on them–40 cents or a buck or a buck-fifty, or some amount that’s not quite enough to get on the subway with.

This happens when I need to put more money on the card, but am faced with a machine that issues only new MetroCards. I have another five or six cards at home, also with some change on them. I may make a Christmas ornament out of them someday.

A crowd assembling behind me at the turnstile, I flipped the card over. “Expires -7/31/10,” it said. Expired indeed, and took my four or five dollars or whatever I had on the card with it.

Happy freakin’ Monday, I thought as I headed for the escalator and Grand Central exit.

At least walking is still free.

UPDATE: Thanks to the sound advice from readers Benjamin and Ellie, I presented my expired card to the token clerk at 28th and Park, and was given a fresh new card with the existing $4.50 on it about four seconds later.

It was, quite simply, the least amount of time I’ve ever given myself to catch a train.

And I’ve pushed the limits quite a bit.

I had my eye on the 5:46. I’d like to say I had something absolutely crucial to do in Westchester at 6:30–put out a ticking bomb planted by the Russkies (Jack Bauer was, in fact, having a nap), or go over final wedding plans with Bill and Hill up in Clintonville.

In fact, I just wanted to get home to play with the kiddies and give The Missus a breather.

I’d had a 5:15 phone meeting scheduled and figured it wouldn’t go beyond 5:30, which is when I try to leave for the 5:46.

5:15, no call. 5:20, nothing.

Finally, the guy calls at 5:25. Maybe I can make it really short, I thought.

We did our business while I eyed the clock. It was 5:32 when we were winding down. I shut down my computer and loaded my backpack. We made small talk about Mad Men, and I thought of Don Draper rushing to catch the express to Ossining.

I huge up at 5:34; could I actually exit work and sprint to Grand Central, and track 108, in the next 12 minutes?

I hit the elevators, then the street at 28th. It was 5:37. No, I couldn’t sprint it, not even in my lean, mean prime. My only hope was the 6 train.

Just as I entered the station at 28th, I saw just what I hoped to see: a subway at the platform. I ran my card through and bolted for it–then watched the doors shut and the train take off just as I got there.

I’d be on the 6:10, I conceded. Mission failed. Russkies win. Again.

The new-ish electronic scoreboard in the station said the next train would arrive in three minutes. I clung to a distant hope.

Indeed, there it was, three minutes later. The on-train clock said 5:41. Could I go two stops, then bust through the rush-hour crush in Grand Central to make the 5:46?

I was sure as hell going to try.

We made it to 33rd in a flash, while the run to 42nd snaked slowly through the dark tunnel. I moved closer to the door for pole position and stretched my legs for the sprint.

I looked at my new Timex Iron Man: 5:44:20 as the doors opened. I had less than two minutes to navigate the GCT obstacle course.

I bolted out of the train, pushed through the human morass at the stairs, climbed the steps, bumped off an old man as I headed through the turnstiles, and headed up the stairs to Grand Central.

5:45.

I prayed for the typical 40-seconds late Metro-North train as I galloped down the GCT corridor to the concourse. Then it was down the way-too-narrow escalator  to track 108 (Going up the stairs, only to go down the escalator. Must it be that way?)

I committed the faux pas of actually passing people on the one-person-width escalator, earning me a few stink-eyes. Still, I soldiered on.

It was a straight sprint across the basement level to 108, cutting through a Hudson News to shave off a few seconds (”Crossing the Hudson,” in commuter parlance.). I hit the ramp at 5:45:40 and the lights of my train were flashing. The conductor’s head was out of the window like a Whack-A-Mole. He spied me and offered a faint mask of disgust.

I stepped onto the train just as the doors shut.

A new NYC commuter record. My fellow riders toasted me with a gold medal, a crown made of an olive branch, and a seat on the aisle.

We were all just outside the 6 train at 28th and Park. A woman in white scrubs was trying to get an elderly woman into a cab. The elderly woman’s partner, a heavyset old man, stood nearby in a suit, watching the proceedings.

Also watching were four construction workers. Fit, burly, strapping, you know–construction workers.

The aide in the scrubs was having lots of trouble. The old woman just didn’t bend very well. The southbound cab was in traffic, cars whizzing by. It was almost a scene.

Still, the hard hats, working at 404 Park Avenue South, stood and watched.

I was walking by so I hustled over to pitch in. I asked the chubby old guy if they needed help. He said yes. I put my bag o’ breakfast on an orange pylon and assessed how I might make myself useful. In fact, it was tough to figure out–the aide was blocking most of the elderly woman as the two did their danse macabre at the cab door.

Fortunately, another passer-by was far more adept than me. He was better spoken too–his “may I offer some assistance?” absolutely creaming my “hey, do you need some help?”

He instantly found a hold on the elderly woman’s upper body, and within a minute, they had her in the cab.

Through it all, the construction workers watched.

Thanks to the new work locale two blocks closer to Grand Central, I’ve been exiting the 6 train out the ass-end (perhaps there is a better way to rephrase that) at 28th, as opposed to the front end at 26th I used to use.

As a result I noticed the electronic scoreboards that tell you when your train is coming.

I’m sure these have been in place at 28th for some time, but I first encountered them–on both the uptown and downtown sides–pretty cool.

My first encounter with signs like this was, like many people, in London. I remember there was a stop called Seven Sisters, which struck me as just so English. Wikipedia says the Seven Sisters are located in Tottenham and represent seven clustered oak trees. So the Seven Sisters are not the women involved in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, in case you were wondering.

I saw those signs in London about a decade ago.

Nice to see the MTA joining the Y2K era.

As the LIRR/disability matter and the bus driver “spat upon” case have suggested, there are some transit workers who get paid to recover from injuries that perhaps are not all that injurious. (For what it’s worth, NY Times-man Jim Dwyer smartly points out in today’s rag that fully half of the spat-upon bus drivers came back to work for their next shift.).

Some are simply punching the clock, while others, in transit parlance, go the extra mile.

In fact, I saw a sterling example of each, not 10 feet from each other, at the top of the escalators heading down to the 4-5-6-7 under Grand Central today.

I guess there’s construction on the escalators, because the human morass heading down was enormous, and there’s always freakin’ construction going on on those elevators. MTA set up a steel police barrier separating those coming up from the subways (a thin crowd) and those heading down (a major crowd), to keep the downbound from clogging the up staircase. (Forgive me for thinking that the police barrier would make a decent bike rack, since we currently do not have one in Hawthorne station.)

MTA stationed a pair of workers to make sure no one snuck past the police barrier. One, a black woman of 35, wore a blank expression and stood stock still; a mannequin could’ve done the job just as well, and for considerably cheaper, even with MTA’s mismanagement factored in.

Ten feet down the line was another MTA worker, also a black 30-something woman, in the white MTA short-sleeve dress shirt, I think with a white hardhat on with a blue brimmed MTA cap on. Standing about 4′ 11″, she wore a big smile on her face and somehow made eye contact with every one of the pissed off commuters jammed up waiting for the down escalator.

“Hello! Good morning!” she hollered. “Hello!!! Good morning!!!”

And on it went, everyone getting a well-intentioned salutation, some returning the favor, appreciating the small salve for the irritation of escalator work and the resultant delays.

Good morning right back at ya, Ma’am.

UPDATE: Saw the happy greeting lady again this morning. The crowd at the top of the escalators wasn’t bad, but she was there to brighten the mood nonetheless.

“Hello!” she said to each and every commuter, able to connect individually due to the lighter traffic load. “Good morning! Hello!”

She got me directly, her eyes a pair of lasers zeroing in on the twin oval targets on my face. “Good morning!” she said.

“Good morning,” I replied. “How are you?”

“I’m great, thank you!” she said. “Have a great day!”

I was climbing the subterranean Grand Central ramp that stretches from Oyster Bar to up by the 6 train entrance. (Uh, ever wonder why we have to go from underground to ground level just to go back to underground level?). A new song began on my iPod, “Gigantic” from the Pixies. Suddenly it had this strong undercurrent of bagpipes.

Bagpipes? My iPod Classic had been a bit wonky lately; what it says is the Hold Steady track “Constructive Summer” is actually Talking Heads’ “And She Was.” Had the iPod unwittingly given me a Pixies-Flogging Molly mash-up, bagpipes dissonantly sitting upon Kim Deal’s wail?

I ripped off my earbuds and the bagpipes got stronger; it wasn’t my iPod.

I flashed back to stumbling along that pedestrian district that heads down to the bay in Galway, a pre-kids trip with lots of pubs, a guy with a pockmarked face, greasy hair and desperate change cup filling the whole of the lane with “Foggy Dew” on his ‘pipes. Another flashback, a rugby match against Bayonne, city of my matriarch’s arrival on a ship from Ireland, pipes playing at some pitch along the river just before kickoff.

Where was it coming from?

Instead of hitting the subway, I banged a left near the Swatch store and went to the main Grand Central hall. Could it be a lone MTA-sanctioned musician, filling the entire train station with his ‘pipes, sounds bouncing off the stone ceilings, walls, floor?

I saw nothing. I headed toward where the noise was coming from, around Track 23. I looked up, I looked down the passage to points north.

Nothing.

I gave up the ghost, with work and all to go to. I went through Vanderbilt Hall to the exit. Scores of policemen stood in their dress blues. A banner saluted the MTA police.

Surely, the pipers were about to make a grand entrance.

The man who works the security desk at my office.

You’re the last man I see as my daily commute concludes and my workday begins.

You’re a pleasant man, always with a warm smile and a good morning over the almost five years I’ve worked here. Some people engage you in small talk, and some ignore you, wrapped up in their Blackberrys and thoughts. I’m somewhere in the middle: always a good morning, occasionally a little baseball talk in the post-season–you like the Yankees–but not typically conversation. I was pretty sure I knew your name before we got the memo last week.

The memo.

The memo was just awful. It mentioned the terrible tragedy you suffered; multiple family members killed down south. Your children, murdered. I asked another front-desk man how you were faring the next day, and the man shook his head for a long, long time.

Late last week, someone posted a flyer about a memorial service, up in Harlem, for your family members.

I saw you back at work for the first time today. You had the smile on, but your eyes gave you away. I stopped and shook your hand, and tried to express my condolences in some meaningful way. You were gracious and told me you were taking it one day at a time. I nodded and gave a slight smile and headed over to the elevators, feeling I hadn’t said or done enough, but unsure as to what else could be said or done.

I hope you find peace. I thank you for putting on your suit and your smile and coming back to work, and for reminding me–us–that the things we complain about, the annoying train passengers and flight delays and fare hikes, are downright silly when someone else is dealing with a tragedy as deep and unthinkable as the one you’re working through.

I didn’t say enough to your face, and I’m not saying enough in this letter. There is no enough in the face of what you’re going through. I barely know you but I feel deeply for you. One day at a time, you said. I hope tomorrow is a tiny bit better than today, and so on.

Respectfully,

Trainjotting

The woman who “flashed” her MetroCard at the 28th Street station this morning.

We were getting off the downtown-bound 6, and were making our way to the emergency exit door that leads to the way out at 26th Street.

You were flying into the station, desperate to get on board that train. You were blonde and about 40, with an expression that brought to mind grave seriousness, though we can’t say for sure if the unique circumstances in which we encountered you contributed to such a mask. Perhaps you sport a different face on weekends, peering over the Sunday Times in slippers made to look like rabbits.

But today, it was Game Face.

As is often the case, there’s really no way to effectively swim upstream when you’re trying to get past a teeming mass of humanity flooding the turnstiles in the opposite direction. Let’s face it, you’re on the next train, important meeting or not.

So what did you do? I mean, you had to be on that train. At 9:10, the next one might not arrive for, oh, another four minutes or so.

This is what you did. Seeing a slight break in traffic flooding past the iron emergency exit door, you made your break. Of course, there was the small matter of actually paying for your fare–not an option when you go through the emergency door, unless there’s a token clerk there to ring you up, and there hasn’t been a clerk in that spot since Ford told the city to drop dead.

Nonetheless, you, Woman With Grave Expression, At Least This Morning, flashed your MetroCard through the air, like Detective Sipowicz showing his “shield” at a crime scene (”Uh, sorry for your loss, ma’am. Whadda we got, boys?”), as if some invisible magnetic laser would extend from the turnstile to your card and charge you the required $2.25.

It was as if you were saying, I’m willing to pay, I even have my card out! I just don’t have time to pay the fare. No, not me. Places to go, people to see. Hard work to do before the rabbit slippers this weekend.

I wasn’t able to tell if you got on that train, Ma’am. I can only hope a member of law enforcement mimicked your motion and flashed you something with more juice than a MetroCard.

We really don’t know what can add to this with mere words.

Check out this particularly fowl video.

From June 29, 2009

The woman who muttered a sarcastic “thank you” to my back after I cut her off at the 28th Street stop this morning.

First off, Ma’am, I don’t think I was really, truly in the wrong.

It’s the slow approach to the two revolving doors under the 6 train’s special 28th Street entrance/exit that lets out at 25th and Park.

I’ve written about this unique spot before. Dozens of commuters stagger toward a pair of antiquated revolving doors. Why people need to exit through revolving doors as opposed to, say, I don’t know, maybe a wide-open corridor, is beyond me. I assume it has something to do with the Met Life building being on some list of historic places, so everything that’s under its roof is exempt from being knocked down.

The egression congestion problem was never more acute than a few weeks back, when one revolving door was broken, so the whole of the 6 train exiting at that spot had to file through a lone revolving door. Thank you, preservationists of New York City.  

Anyway, the spot offers an interesting snapshot of New York mass transit protocol. A pair of informal lines develop before the revolving doors, but since they’re not official lines, people sneak up the side of them and cut.

Which is what you were doing at 9:35 this morning, Ma’am. I saw you out of the corner of my eye, sneaking up the eastern flank or the revolving door on the right. I know from experience that eastern flank sneakers are easy to thwart, as one enters the revolving door from the western flank. One has to be extra-crafty to sneak up on the right, and still get in the door before the rest of the line.

You–a 40something black woman, short gray hair–were not quite crafty enough. You tried to sneak in, but I got my big dopey body in first. I’m not sure how it looked to the 60-odd people behind us–who they would find as the offending party, or if they would even notice at all.

Ma’am, I did make an extra effort to get in the door before you, and probably was seen by some (albeit those with a blind eye to etiquette) as an overly aggressive thug. About that I’m not particularly proud. But it was merely a response to your offending action; you were offsides, and then fair game for such malfeasance. If you venture into the goalie’s crease, Ma’am, you really can’t complain about an abrupt hip check.

You did not go quietly in my wake, Ma’am. No, after I’d clearly gotten my frame into the the next available Trivial Pursuit slice of the revolving door, you muttered a sarcastic “Thank you” into my back. I’d received no small degree of sunburn on my (previously) pale Irish neck over the weekend (so much for the Curse of Ezekiel Marcus!), and could feel your words burn into my sensitive nape.

I’ve learned from my actions, Ma’am. Perhaps I’ll be less aggressive in penalizing the improper behavior of others; surely that’s a Sysyphean task in a metropolis such as ours.

Hopefully you’ll learn too–to take your rightful place in the informal line, or at least keep the sarcastic barbs nestled behind your lips when someone calls you on your breach of subway etiquette.

Sort of apologetically but mostly not,

Trainjotting

UPDATE: To show that I’m a changed man from the experience, I just five minutes ago held open the door for three people behind me as I approached Gregory’s for some coffee, even though I knew that would place me behind them on line. I only cut ahead of them when they were dawdling inside the store while discussing Hoboken.