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.

I’m chugging big-time for the 6:10 last night, cutting it closer than I normally do.

I see the lights a-flashing as I make my way down the ramp; it’s not a case of Thinkablinkaphobia, it’s the real deal.

I get on, and the conductor operating the door button, head out the window like vertical Whack-A-Mole, gives me the look.

I head toward the back where the seats are and, lo and behold, the mother lode of the seating situations: An empty six-seater. The coup de grace!

I ease into the six-seater the way you ease into a hot tub.

The train starts moving. But it stops about 40 feet down the platform. One man is standing on the platform, praying for a reprieve.

“C’mon,” I see him mouth.

Ten seconds pass. Another man is on the platform, and another.

They try telekinesis to get the doors to open. People on board pick up on the drama; will the conductors let them on?

The train has been stopped for 40 seconds. There are five men on the platform, then six. Hope is in their eyes.

Me, I’m trying to see how many of my six seats I can use: Rear in one, knees against another, bag on one, Times on another. Two to share spare.

The doors fail to open and the train pulls away. Three of the men on the platform laugh. Two frown. One grimaces and shakes his head; his pain is palpable.

I make like the three men and laugh, and try to figure out how I can use my remaining two seats.

It’s 5:59 and I have to get from 26th and Park to my train in the basement of Grand Central by 6:10.

Sure, the next train is only 23 minutes later. But Little G has been hassling me about not playing enough of late; he was spoiled by the abundance of Dad-ness over the Christmas break, and then again with the three-day weekend earlier this week.

“Play with me, Daddy!” he’s implored me all week as I set out for work. If I don’t work, you don’t get Legos, I tell him. Hit ‘em where it hurts.

So I had to be on that 6:10 to give the kid an hour before bed.

Making a train in 11 minutes is, paradoxically, a bit easier than making one in, say, 14 minutes. If I have 16 minutes, I can walk the whole route at a brisk clip. If I have 11 minutes, I have to run the whole thing. If I have 14 minutes, it’s a nebulous mix of walking and jogging, and sometimes I get the mix wrong.

So I ran, and actually made the thing with about two minutes to spare.

The 6:10 doesn’t leave at 6:10. Maybe it’s that one-minute late rule the New York Times unearthed, I say. But the minute passes, and we’re still sitting.

The conductor walks by. I don’t take the 6:10 much but I always notice the guy on it. He seems like he’s drunk. I’ve never smelled hootch on him or anything, but he just has that look–the glassy eyes, the Weebles Wobble demeanor, the jaunty humor that doesn’t quite meet its mark, the layer of permascruff on his face that makes one think of hangovers, unnatural desires for bloody marys, and internal promises to quit smoking.

The conductor sorts out some sort of door trouble and we’re off.

But in Harlem, it’s a similar story. We close the doors at 6:22 and sit.

The wobbly conductor walks by again, talking to himself.

“Can we fasten the door down there?” he says to no one in particular.

I watch him pass through our car, then see him through the window of the next car, making his way up the aisle, looking for the faulty door.

Little G awaits at home, Legos in hand, looking toward the door.

C’mon, dude. Get this thing moving.

A funny thing happened on the 6:10 last night.

I boarded at around 6:09, headed toward the back, where I thought I might find an aisle seat, and started scoping out real estate.

A full-on six-seater sat completely unoccupied.

Instead of jumping on it, the skeptic in me told me to wait a second and assess the situation. Was there a homeless guy parked across the aisle, his suitcase stinking of fish? It was right behind the bathroom–was there a river of blue urine snaking underfoot?

Even if everything seemed copasetic, which it did, what if another late arriver or two were to claim some of the remaining five seats, and somehow force me to sit knee-to-knee with a stranger all the way to White Plains? (Why doesn’t smartass TJ come up with a Word of the Week for that one…Commutjugal visits or something?)

I grabbed the six seater. No one else boarded. I had the whole damn thing to myself.

I leaned forward and rested my knees on the seat in front of me. I spread my bag and newspapers all over the place. I sat sideways and enjoyed the view.

Then I got bored, and a bit lonely. It was kind of like house-sitting for Hef, only you’ve got no one to invite to the mansion. I longed for a cramped two-seater, the intimacy of a stranger seated next to me.

But at least I got to try it.

Found on the 6:10 to Mt. Kisco, stuck to the window, the business card for one Joe “Petie” Rivera, a “Real Estate Salesperson” representing Weichert.

“Petie” works out of Larchmont. Looking at his color headshot on the card, he’s a Latin man in a dark suit and yellow tie, a shaved head and a trim salt-and-pepper moustache.

All good.

But then there’s the matter of “Petie’s” email address: Goldfingers327@aol.com.

We all know someone with a “funny” email address, and maybe we even are that someone. Pimpdaddy@yahoo.com. ObamasMama@hotmail.com. TripsR4Kids@aol.com, that sort of thing.

But on a business card? Goldfingers makes me think he plays honky tonk piano in after-hours joints, or has a trusty manservant he dresses in leather called Oddjob, or spends an inordinate amount of time at, yup, Goldfingers, which dubs itself “The World’s Most Exclusive Gentleman’s Club!!!” (Exclusive, as in, no tank tops, especially if they’re ripped.)

Maybe ol’ Petie Goldfingers is completely legit. But when you spend $800,000 on a house Goldfingers sold you, and two weeks after closing, you’re standing in hip-deep water in the basement with mummified corpses floating about and some Hell’s Angel is waving the deed to the place and saying ol’ Goldfingers sold it to him a few months back, you can’t say you’re completely surprised.

Anyway, that’s our take on Goldfingers.

[photo: pilotguides.com]

Despite MTA service advisories saying that everything was fine through Chappaqua amidst yesterday’s tornado-ish weather, there was all sorts of hell to encounter on the 6:10. Of course, the one day a friend (Joey From 5D) joins us on the train for a visit, we were treated to the worst ride we’ve experienced in seven months of commuting. Trees were down on the tracks, and there was a giant train traffic jam in White Plains.

We actually got off to a decent start, then started slowing down in Scarsdale. Joey from 5D and I had finished our Sam Adams and sort of ran out of old-friends stuff to talk about (”What’s up with Kat?” “What’s up with A***hole Guy?”). Bored with our surroundings, we started looking out the window for things to stimulate us. (Yes, Joey from 5D, there is a lot of garbage along the tracks, and no, not everyone in this particular town drives a BMW or a Mini. It’s a car dealer.)

We slowed to a crawl in Hartsdale, then a complete stop. Fortunately, the Missus agreed to pick us up two stops early, in North White Plains. By the time we limped into NWP, we’d been on board for an hour and 5 minutes, a full half-hour longer than it should take.

Of course, getting off at a new station meant some sightseeing, such as the giant CVS and the lot where they keep busted cement mixers.

You had to love the doofus on the 6:10 yesterday who prefaced two of the loudest cellphone conversations I’ve ever witnessed with “THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL!” He was a bald guy in round-rim specs and a pinstriped suit, and had everyone within shouting distance listening to his “confidential” conversations, which involved trying to sell medical gear to hospitals like NYU Med and St. Vincent’s.

The weird thing was, the guy had actually moved to the standing area of the train to make the calls, as if to spare his neighbors the agita of having to listen to his business dealings. Thus liberated, he then proceeded to include close to a hundred people to his highly classified conversations. At least half of them tried hard, angry stares to get him to lower the volume, but he was too immersed in negotiations.

An otherwise normal trip home on the 6:10 slowed to a crawl just before Scarsdale. After several minutes of putt-putting along, we got the dreaded announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a stalled train on the track between Hartsdale and White Plains, so we’re limited to one track in both directions.”

While seeing the white Rolls Royce parked in Scarsdale was kind of cool, the slow crawl home was the very last thing I wanted to deal with following a work day that was so busy that, after some change fell through a hole in my pocket, a penny lodged inside my shoe, and it took me nearly an hour to find the time to fish it out. (True story, actually.)

This got me thinking. While tonight’s misadventures were exceptional–we ended up pulling into Hawthorne in an hour and four minutes, fully 22 minutes late–the Westchester-bound train is never, ever on time. I mean, I can think of 2-3 times since I started riding in the fall that it’s been on time. In the rare (but oh so pleasant) instance that I get a ride home from the Missus, I add two minutes to my arrival time (a practice the MTA calls “schedule padding”) so she’s not waiting long at the lot, and we’re still late more often than not. Heck, even the city-bound train, which has to navigate all sorts of track traffic to enter Grand Central, clocks in early every now and then (three minutes early this morning, in fact).

So here it is: When will be the next time my return train on the Harlem Line gets in on time–on time defined as up to 59 seconds past the scheduled minute (as in, the train due in at 6:52 is on time as long as it arrives before 6:53)?

Dear readers, shake off your March Madness pool woes and enter our humble pool. Send the exact date the return train gets in on time to trainjotting@gmail.com, and I’ll start keeping track. The winner will get a handsome prize to be determined.

Interesting hint of drama on the 6:10 last night (a train so full that I had to stand with my back to the door in the back row, as the standing room only vestibule spots were cheek to cheek).

The conductor came around near Harlem. A young man looked at him with large, baleful eyes. He was around 20, with an inch-high afro and scrubbly facial hair, and looked like Dukie from The Wire (below).

He proceeded to stammer.

“I…l-l-l-l-lost my wallet…and it…had my train pass…and I bought a gift for my mother…”

At this point he procured a silver Dolce & Gabbana box that looked like it held a watch.

“A-a-a-and I only have three dollars,” he said, barely louder than a whisper.

The conductor looked like the kid had barfed on his train belt buckle.

“Gimme the three dollars,” said the conductor. “I’ll bill you.”

His fingers protruding from gloves with the tips cut off, the kid pulled three wrinkly bills from his pocket as the conductor ripped off a ticket.

“How are you going to bill me?”

“I’ll come back,” said the conductor.

Twenty minutes later, the train shuffled into White Plains. The kid scooted off without being “billed”.

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