As JerseyJim noted, commuters in search of potent potables have an alternative option to the overpriced-albeit-convenient beer & booze guys situated on the Grand Central platforms.

Yes, Rite Aid has a wide selection of beer for those who have the time and patience to wait in a New York City chain drugstore cashier line. I poked in earlier this week for a glimpse at the selection. While the Grand Central beer guys specialize in the 16 oz. tall boys, Rite Aid’s got the really tall (and wide!) boys–many totaling 22 or 24 ounces.

A Bud Light 24 ounce monster sells for $1.69. A Coors Light counterpart is a little smaller (22 ounces) and cheaper ($1.59).

The last time I checked, a 16 oz. Bud from the Grand Central blueshirts was $2.50, and a 12 oz. fancy beer, such as Sam Adams, ran you $3.50.

Among the premium offerings over at Rite Aid are the Foster’s oil can and the Beck’s 24 oz. at $2.29, a handsome Guinness 22 ozzer at $2.59, and the Heineken 24 oz. can that’s shaped like a cute little keg at $3.29. 

If you’re not in the mood for a bomber, Rite Aid had a few six-packs that could surely be broken up. Heineken ran at $9.69, and a sixer of the King of Beers went for $6.59–or presumably $1.10 for a single 12 oz. pop.  

Finally, kids, today’s repurposed Word of the Week is Booze it or Lose it.

[image: Buzzfoto.com, in case you can’t see the giant ‘Buzzfoto.com’ across the bottom of the image.]

We, for one, buy far fewer beers for the train ride home since we discovered the joys of cough medicine the costs of Grand Central-issued beers went up roughly 25% in May 2008.

Rider/reader ConnecticEnergy offers up a valuable tip for the budget-minded commuter (and who among us is anything but these days?). If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, a wide variety of beers can be purchased at the Rite Aid located along Grand Central’s western flank. Prices are probably half what they charge from the beer guys near the platforms…I’ll have to check it out myself and offer up a detailed report on prices and variety.

Of course, the one downside is the amount of time it would take. The beer guys are quick. The cashiers at Rite Aid not so much, so the Booze it or Lose it rule certainly comes into play.

With TJ hitting a landmark birthday later in the week…thank you, no, really–thank you…the gifts from far-flung sisters start trickling on around now.

The first one over the transom may just end up the best, especially for thirsty and stressed out commuters such as yourself.

Here’s a bit of a dilemma for the mature commuters of the world. You want a bottle of beer for the 6:33 after a particularly stressful day, during which your boss has mentioned just how narrow the gap is between you and the unemployment line. Sure, you could have the Grand Central beer guy pop the cap for you, but then you’re walking around looking for a seat with beer spilling over the edge of your bottle. You could pop it yourself, but that would involve carrying a bottle opener everywhere you go, and men of a certain age should no longer be in the possession of bottle-opener keychains.

And if you’re like me, the plastic RSA hard-token thingy your company issues to regenerate a network passcode every few minutes ends up looking like a dog chewed it after its hard edge has opened a few dozen Sam Adams.

Enter the Guinness ballcap with the bottle-opener built into the brim.

[mine is slightly different, with the opener on the under side of the brim, and a nice Guinness harp on the visible side.]

Folks, this is genius. Or, as the guys in that Guinness commercial might say, “BRILLIANT!”

It’s a handsome black Guinness hat with gold lettering. It has a metal circle with a harp logo in the visor. For the first hour or so of owning my handsome new Guinness hat, I thought it was just a decorative element–a metallic take on the gold stickers that dumbass kids seem to love leaving on the brims of their new Starter baseball caps.

But lo, the underside of it is designed to pop open bottles.

Keep this baby in your briefcase, and you’ll not only look sharp on the ride home–who doesn’t respect a Guinness drinker?–but you’ll have a handy bottle-opener to boot.

It’s the greatest development in beer-related headware since the Foam Dome rose to prominence.

This being the season of all-star teams and the like, I think we found the starting pitcher on the All-Jerk team on the 5:46 out of Grand Central yesterday.

He sat on the aisle in a five-seater and had his feet up on the seat across from him (Jerk!). He had a Bud tall boy, and poured half of it into a plastic cup, which sat untethered under his seat (Jerk!!). He yapped on his cellphone, quite loudly, for much of the trip. (Jerk!!!)

The man was about 45, sported business casual, and looked a bit like a grown-up Erkel. He had a late-model cellphone and made a point of calling several people and speaking at an inappropriate volume. The people he spoke to seemed to make short work of him; the man abruptly coughed up a quick good-bye a few times, then stared at his phone directory to see who he might call next. He’d logged four conversations and two more voicemail checks by the time we hit the Bronx, easily bagging a HAT&T Trick.

He had nothing to read and clearly wanted it that way. He kept staring at his phone the way a simple child would stare at something shiny. He kept wondering who to call, hoping a name would jump out at him, and bearer of that name would accept his call. Alas, none remained by Morris Heights.

The man kept sipping his beer, then returning the cup to the floor beneath his seat. Several sets of eyes studied the beer and contemplated their emergency plans if…nay, when…the beer spilled.

It spilled around Wakefield, sending a stream of the amber nectar flowing to the rear of the car. The man mumbled something to the guy seated cattycorner to him in the five-seater and made no effort to clean it up, even throw an old Business section of the Times on it. The half-empty tallboy can glided along the spillage like a skim-boarder.

Finally, around Scarsdale, the man actually got a call on the cell. Folks, it was Christmas in July for our simple-minded friend. He bolted to the vestibule to speak with his pal.

The man was, mercifully, out of mind for a few moments, and his river of spilled beer had thankfully stopped a row in front of me.

Then the train hurtled into White Plains, and the man sprinted from the vestibule to his seat, beloved phone in one hand and Bud tallboy in the other. He was a flurry of elbows and knees as he attempted to gather his belongings and exit. The remains of his Bud tallboy went flying across his seat and the seat next to it (both empty). Leaving the beer exactly where he spilled it, the man exited at White Plains.

Eyes shot around the car, all saying the same thing:

A-hole.

As Easter approaches, we felt it was only appropriate to republish the Trainjotting “Commuter’s 10 Commandments.”

—

Oddly enough, Moses was on the 5:46 to Mount Kisco last night. He left these behind…which, come to think of it, is a transgression of Commandment #4.

1. Thou shalt leave the seat next to thou unadorned with books and bags until the train starts moving, thus making it available for fellow riders. Once the train starts moving, it’s OK to put thou’s crap there.

2. Thou shalt not stare at thou’s mobile device and impede the progress of the group while walking to and from the train.

3. Thou shalt emphasis the “personal” in personal music devices by keeping thou’s iPod volume at a reasonable level. Thou may enjoy Insane Clown Posse. We, however, do not.

4. Thou shalt dispose of thou’s garbage, be it beer cans, coffee cups or newspapers. C’mon, folks, this isn’t Shea Stadium.

5. Thou shalt not engage in personal grooming activities, such as flossing and nose-hair trimming, on the train. Applying makeup is OK, I guess.

6. Thou shalt not place soaking wet umbrellas and raincoats in the overhead rack so that they drip on fellow riders’ heads.

7. Thou shalt not snore. We’ll affix a Breathe-Rite strip to thine nose if we have to. Don’t think we won’t.

8. Thou shalt use thy cellphone only for essential calls, and only then with thou’s inside voice. Thou shalt not pore through thine phone book looking for people to call to kill time. Uh, read or something. There are plenty of free papers out there.

9.  Thou shalt have thy ticket ready for the conductor. Imagine thou is the conductor. How frustrated would thou be to have to wait for someone to fish their ticket or pass from their pocket? Thou knows the guy is coming.

10. Thou shalt not let thy leg, shoulder or elbow cross the invisible line in between seats. Unless, of course, thou is particularly large, in which case thou should drive.

Any others that Moses missed?

[image: judaica-art.com]

Metro-North is poised to hike up the price of a cocktail on both its bar cars and the carts stationed near the platforms in Grand Central. The railroad is “seeking approval from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors to raise prices…to keep pace with inflation.”

Metro-North’s booze sales represented $607,000 in profit last year, approximately 63% of it from me.  Metro-North estimates it sells a million beers and 250,000 bags of chips in a year.

The MTA board will vote on the matter–a joint request between Metro-North and Long Islang Railroad–Wednesday, and the price hikes would go into effect May 8. Perhaps more daunting, the railroad is also “seeking authorization to raise prices each September at the rate of growth in the consumer price index… without seeking board approval.”   

The new price list would see a domestic beer jump from $2 to $2.50.  

As Metro-North has left us with precious little to grouse about these days, we had to dig deep to satisfy our complain quote.

So we turn to beer selection.

While we’re unfailingly grateful to be able to enjoy an adult beverage on the evening train (or the morning train, if that’s what the day calls for), it’d be even nicer if Metro-North’s booze selection was shaken up (or stirred, for that matter) every once in a while.

See, we get a bit tired of the same old Bud bottle/Bud can/Bud Light/Miller Genuinely Bland Draft/Sam Adams-if-it’s-payday beer selections.  How nice would it be if Metro-North took a page from the hospitality industry and went with seasonal selections: A nice Sam Winter Lager around this time of year, a little Negro Modelo in early May, perhaps a wheat beer come summer. Keep the Bud family intact, but offer up the premiums for a little extra.

Further borrowing from the bar biz, maybe Metro-North could import some attractive bartenders to work the Grand Central beers stands, flash you a quick smile with your beer, make you think they really truly dig you and want to ride the 5:46 to White Plains home with you. It’d be a far cry from the men in bowl cuts and baby blue MTA shirts currently hawking brews.

Just a thought.

Since surely half the American population has a beer in their hand right around now, we thought we’d offer up an adult beverage-themed post. After passing it while sprinting to the train several dozen times, we had the unique pleasure of actually stopping and enjoying a few al fresco drinks at Pershing Square last Friday.

What made it so uniquely pleasurable? A number of things. For one, it’s literally about 60 feet from Grand Central. They’ve closed off the western side of Park Avenue between 41st and 42nd for the outdoor cafe, so one gets to experience an outdoor drink in Manhattan without cars rushing by, with about a 60-second walk to one’s train.

Another reason, and we’re clenching our teeth as we write this next sentence, is that pints of good beer are only $6. Indeed, the word “only” should not precede the mention of $6 beers until at least 2023, but we expected worse. After all, a premium pint in an outdoor setting of a commuter/tourist-friendly place in midtown Manhattan might fetch eight bucks or so. So we were pleasantly surprised to only plunk down $6.

We scored two tables, met friends, had a few drinks, and still had Little G home before the sun went down (mind you, our nightlife has very little “night” left in it anymore). And every time the bambino grew bored, a quick trip to the corner of 42nd–cop cars, buses, fearless pedicab drivers–seemed to snap him out of it.

Trainjotting gives the outdoor cafe of Pershing Square a full 4 pints of Brooklyn Lager out of a possible 5.

Sir,

I hadn’t noticed you until I heard the clink of beer bottles stemming from your seat. You were pouring a full bottle of Corona into an empty bottle of Corona. I couldn’t figure out why, until I saw the wedge of lime in the bottom of the empty bottle. You like the citrus flavor in your beer.

You, sir, had knocked off that second Corona before we’d even pulled out of the tunnel around 100th Street, and were on to your next quarry, a Heineken tall boy.

But that’s not why I write. You, sir, are a model of booze-consuming behavior. Because, as the train pulled into White Plains, you rounded up each and every of your empties, even bending to pick up a scrap of paper you’d left behind.

When your seat failed to flip up (it was one of those spring-action folding ones near the  door), you balanced on one foot–despite the 40 ounces of bland lager coursing through your bloodstream–and raised the seat with your toe.

As you departed, there was nary a sign that a person had inhabited the seat. I assume the gap between the train and the platform was a non-issue for you, because the train was off in a matter of seconds.

Sir, as the MTA frets about the behavior of those consuming a drink or two on the train, I consider you a shining example of one who can enjoy an adult beverage–or three–while still being a discreet and fully functional member of Metro-North society.

Bravo.

–Trainjotting

PS: We’re a little concerned about all the drinking though.

There’s quite a lively discourse going on at Gawker, stemming from their posting of the Times article announcing that riders will continue to be able to consume potent potables on the train. Predictably, it devolves into a pissing match between the city and the ‘burbs and the easy cliches representing both factions: Manhattan media elitists and Greenwich middle managers in Dockers.

One highlight:

For all those ragging on the [above] picture: this is what people whose jobs require them to put on pants in the morning look like. Get over it. Not everyone is lucky enough to be a bitter, unemployed “writer.”