Subway Me
Friday, October 22, 2010
I try to spend as little time as possible on the subway, but with winter fast approaching I have no choice but to throw down $27 to the MTA once a week and hop on. My favorite, and probably only good thing about the train is the fact that I get no cell service and for however many minutes, I can be completely alone (sometimes alone, sometimes lonely). Just me and the rest of the B train's morning commuters. Except the one time my phone rang, and I carried on a conversation in between two stations while people looked on in pure shock and envy. One passenger sauntered over to me, "My GOODNESS! WHAT service do you have?"
"Verizon," I said.
A look of defeat. "Oh, wow. That's so great you get service on the train. I have T Mobile."
"No it's not! This is my personal quiet time! I don't want people calling and talking to me while I'm on the subway."
"Oh..sorry, didn't mean to impose on your quiet time. I will leave you alone."
As amusing as that conversation was, it's a rarity and there has to be something else to do during the endless stops and starts of the train. My favorite game to play? Ring hunt. It's a simple game. How many people standing around you are engaged and/or married? After months of careful analysis, you will begin to notice not very many New Yorkers are engaged. Almost always, the tourists (and you know they're tourists by the obligatory map they are clutching in their hand while holding on to the nearest pole as their knuckles turn white) are wearing wedding rings. Something about not living in this crazy madness that is New York City makes you more desirable perhaps. Or maybe the sole fact that they are wearing a ring makes them the crazy ones. I can't have all the answers, guys.
Every so often I spot what I like to call The Deal Closer. You know what I'm talking about. The rings that are so large and shiny and glittery and just all around gorgeous that you know there is no way the woman could have possibly said no when presented with a rock like that. I relish in those moments, in the confirmation that rings like that exist in Manhattan. And not just in the window at Tiffanys, but on real live human beings. But then there are The Deal Breakers. The rings that are so tiny, or scream CUBIC ZIRCONIA you know the thought "That's it? I don't have to say yes, right?" at least ran through that person's mind.
At any rate, playing Ring Hunt on the subway in New York is like looking for Elvis some mornings. It doesn't do too much for the confidence boost that there is love to be had in Manhattan, but it, like many other things in this city, helps the time pass when you're lonely.