The Train Chronicles #5 - Weird stuff

I see a lot of stuff on the train. I am on it for almost three hours a day so there is a lot to write about. However, I looked back at the list of my blog entries and I realized that I have written about the characters on the train lately. Have I gotten tired of talking about them? Have they gotten less interesting (hardly likely!)? It made me wonder why I had begun to slack off. I think I was just busy and was focused on some other things. That said here are some crazy things that I have seen lately and some oldie but goodies!

• Yesterday there was a guy dressed in a full renaissance fair outfit playing the lute on the downtown 1 and he acted like we were strange for looking at him as he panhandled.
• This morning a man came on and tried to sell DVDs for a "animated movie" that he was trying to raise money for but then never moved from his spot as if he expected people to come to HIM to make a purchase! This ain't a lemonade stand, fool! You better walk around, you crazed cartoonist.
• Last week, a woman got on the train wearing 14 differently colored pieces of clothing. Yes I counted. I had too because either she didn't when she got dressed or she wore all of that so that I would noticed and be forced to count. Either way, I felt visibly assaulted and called the fashion police immediately when I resurfaced to report her whereabouts. There is no telling what kind of damage she could cause if left unchecked.
• I once sat across from a man who I surmised was a Buddhist monk from Africa. The monk part was easy to figure out: he was wearing full garb and was praying with Buddhist beads. The African part only became apparent when a man with a Haitian accent accosted him, rudely inquiring "what's all this about". The man clearly didn't want to be disturbed and ignored him but the other man persisted. Eventually he tried to speak and I realized that he didn't speak English. After one more inconsiderate intrusion, I told the Haitian man that the guy was a monk and was praying. He then turned his attention to me to bother me. I, however, am not a meek monk and shut him down immediately. The Haitian eventually got off and the monk nodded to me a sign of thanks. It's not everyday that you have an opportunity to come to aid of an African monk!
• Two weeks ago, I boarded the 2 train and a woman was sitting in a seat right by the door. Her friend/lover/boo, another woman on the wrong side of 250 pounds, was laid out over the seats next to her which were designed to seat 3 more people (technically). Now this second woman was loud and obnoxious. The sad part was that my fellow hard core New Yorkers said NOTHING to her and milled about looking for some place to STAND! I guess I was too far south or not far enough because these people made no fuss whatsoever and the woman only moved when her friend told her she was making a scene. If I were one of the people that were displaced because she decided to re-purpose that subway car from transportation to lodging, there would have been a misunderstanding.
• And last but not least, there is the woman who taps me on my shoulder as I am writing this very blog post to ask me "is that an iPad?" even though I have a set of large, over the ear, headphones, the universal sign for "DON'T BOTHER ME RIGHT NOW". I wanted to tell her that it was an intergalactic communicator and I was in the process of logging all of the annoying people on planet Earth so that my fellow aliens could come, remove them, and place them all on a satellite moon by themselves where they could all annoy each other and leave us in peace and that I had just added HER name to the list. Somehow that run on sentence in my head came out as "yes it is". Oh well, another missed opportunity.

And so, as I type this to the sounds of yet another mariachi band on the 1 train, I have to wonder: am I the only one seeing weird stuff on the train? What strangeness have you all encountered?

Post Script - As I put this post to bed, I passed a woman with a cat in a baby carrier on the train. It never ends...