Taking It

Tonight on my commute home, a portion of my trip that should take 40 minutes took two hours... and that's the optimistic estimate, considering that I am writing this in the middle of it. This has happened, on average, about once a month since the rates took a 25 percent hike last summer, and short of telling my employer that I'm not coming in anymore, I will continue to take worse service for more money into perpetuity. With the Middle East in the throes of oil-company unfriendly upheaval prior to a gas price run-up, and my family down to one car, there really isn't any other option. I'll take it, and take it, and take it, for as long as I want to be employed in New York City.

You can try to be sanguine about this sort of thing, or try to take pleasure in the increasingly rare times when the service isn't boning you without lube, but to be honest, it's just a level of lying to yourself that I can't quite achieve. Especially now, as my hamstrings tighten, my toes remain bitter (like an idiot, I waited on the freezing cold platform, rather than just going into the terminal, for the ever-growing delay - rookie commuter mistake to actually believe the board), and I try to ignore the odors of those around me while not adding to it... It's all lies, lies, lies. Every part of this is loathsome, and every time it happens, I hate myself a little more for not figuring out some way to, well, prevent myself from ever being here again. I'm 41 years old, and over a dozen places have paid me to work a desk for them; the idea that I keep ending up *here* is insane. (Along with any hope that the service will improve. Why should it, when there's clearly no reason for it to get better?)

Oh, and of course there's a gibbering infant who has the frequency to cut through my iPod earbuds. You had to ask?

Which leads us, quite easily, to the NFL negotiations, and to a lesser extent, the NFL itself. It won't be the last time we go down this road, because there's too much money and ingrained behavior for there not to be encores. It also won't get better, or easier to endure, or any less infuriating.

Oh, great. I think Junior has soiled himself. That helps.

And even as it happens, and ruins the off-season and puts road trips in peril, and prevents free agency and retards off-season coaching and personnel integration...

Well, I'll be on this train tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. No matter how long the lockout goes, no matter how loathsome I find the management and the media, and no matter how many times they fail to even keep the status quo, let alone deliver an enhancement.

Cheery, no? Knew I shouldn't have written this mid-commute...