When I encounter people that I consider creepy on the train, especially the ones that attempt to talk to me, I really try not to be rude (at least to their face. Because then I end up going and writing about them, which I suppose could be construed as a rude act). In recent days, this has been difficult. When someone sticks out their hand for a handshake, though you really don’t want to shake it, what exactly do you do? Hand shaking is an important part of our culture of meeting people. Articles get written about how people perceive you based on how firm your handshake is. So really, what do you do? If you don’t shake it, you’re just an asshole. And so, in an effort to not be an asshole, I reluctantly shake their hand. And they prolong it as much as possible. And I wonder when the hell I am going to get my hand back. So thus, I am now armed with this:

This morning was one of those times. There is a man at Goldens Bridge I see every once and a while. He always carries a bag, and he never walks properly, he always scuffs his feet on the ground. He reminds me significantly of a friend of my father’s, which may be the only reason why I end up talking to him each time. He very well could be the long lost brother that was dropped on his head as a baby of my father’s friend. Last week I saw him and he did the handshake thing. Oh and he prolonged it as much as possible. But I think you’d also be considered an asshole if you asked for your hand back. Anyways, today we had a conversation on the platform, it went something like this (He’s in bold):

“Hi!”
“Hello, how are you?”
“I got a new jacket”
He then proceeded to stroke the sleeve of the new jacket. At that point, he was about to walk away, but something brought him back.

“So where is your laptop? You don’t have your laptop today?”
“Oh I have it, it is in my bag.”
“So where do you work in White Plains?”
“At FUJIFILM.”
“Oh nice!” At this point he sounded very impressed.
“Let me guess, you file papers there?”
Wait… what? I file papers? That is so wrong. Are you saying that because I am female? Because I look young? Shit. At this point the train is coming, and so I get on. And he disappeared in the crowd of people. I’ll see him again, I know I will. I just hope the next encounter will not be quite as awkward.

The other evening in the White Plains train station my good friend the crazy coat guy was creeping around the waiting room. He was sporting the earrings and big fat chains that day, as well as his green purse, which must be his favorite, since he’s always had it ever since he started experimenting with women’s purses. As he is stalking around, my friend who is a bit afraid of the guy walked away. She’s convinced that there is going to be one day that the guy is going to snap and either push someone off the platform, or push someone down the stairs. And I certainly wouldn’t put it beyond him. And he has in the past just randomly started yelling at me, so he certainly creeps me out.

While this is going on some other random guy swoops in and says to us, “Don’t be skurred! He’s a little slow, but he won’t hurt you! I see the man every day here.” Well yes, I do too, but I wouldn’t go so far to say as he wouldn’t hurt anyone. As the man walked a few steps closer to inform us yet again to not be “skurred” I could quite clearly smell the alcohol he was drinking from a plastic cup. Right man, I trust you. He then informs us, “if he had done anything, I would have beaten him up for you girls.” I’m sure that would end well.

Oh look at that purse!

Metro North says that the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest train day of the year. And I certainly believe it. Though any day right before a long weekend tends to be rather busy, yesterday I definitely saw the most people I ever have on my train. When I got on at White Plains there were massive amounts of people, barely enough room to get on the train. All the seats were taken, and people were standing.

Or lounging around in the aisles, while wearing ugly boots, taken after Valhalla when most of the standing folks had exited

Though of course human passengers were not the only ones on board. There were a few canines as well, like this delightful ten-month old pup named Jasmine:

The waiting room was surprisingly empty at White Plains though, and the morning trains were fairly empty. You lucky people that didn’t actually have to work yesterday. But of course there was this one creepy guy, carrying four boxes that on the outside said they contained blood drawing needles, and kept studying a photocopy of a paper that had pictures of guns all over it.

Anyways, enjoy the holiday folks, Happy Thanksgiving!

The other night was rather interesting in White Plains… An interesting woman walked up the stairs and stood in line waiting for the ticket machine, and probably just about everyone in the station was staring at her. I’m not the best at just going up to random people and taking their picture, so I don’t have one, unfortunately. The woman had incredibly long dreadlocks, which probably would be down to the floor, had they not been tied up. The dreadlocks were all dyed colors, fire engine red and a sunny yellow. She had many long and pointy piercings on her face, so much so that she looked like a little bit of a porcupine. She also had a tattoo of a heart on her face, whether it was permanent or not I was not able to determine. I don’t really mind people’s looks like some of the folks that were at the train station that night do. I mean, it is her body, she is welcome to do that if she wishes. And heck, I even I had blue hair for a time. The only thing I want to know is why the hell was she carrying a black mannequin torso around at the train station!

I had never seen that woman before, so she is hardly a regular at the station… unlike the crazy guy that is always talking to himself. He’s a train station regular… and it is always a strange day to not see him stalking around. I posted a picture of him a few weeks ago when he first began experimenting with wearing purses. A few days I’ve seen him wearing multiple purses. And then other days, he goes back to wearing big fat gold chains, with gold laces in his boots.

Apparently my friend who happened to also be a the station on the weekend said that she saw him waving money around like a fan. To most people I really wouldn’t suggest doing that at all… but this guy, well, everyone knows he’s crazy, and they probably stay the hell away.

And this guy, well, who knows, I just saw him on the train the other day and felt like taking a picture. He kept showing off the fact that he was wearing no socks and
smooth-shaven legs. That, and he snored really loud.

Train stations are packed this week full of various politicians making their rounds, passing out flyers, and trying to earn your vote on November 3. I was sitting upstairs in the waiting room in White Plains today, and it was just a hilarious procession… Step one: Politician hands you a flyer, Step two: walk down the hallway, Step three: throw flyer into the trash bin, Step four: continue on your way.

Why is it that so many people don’t refuse the flyers? Even if they don’t want them. The majority of folks take it and throw it out. I on the other hand, hold onto them and do different things… Let’s just say I don’t think that Tony Castro and Bill Ryan are my biggest fans.

That was about all that was interesting at the train station this morning… though we did have a guy who was begging for coins, he claimed that he missed his train and he needed fifty cents to call his boss to say he was going to be late to work. One of the folks I ride the shuttle bus with gave him the money, then he walked away. Right past the phone booths. So I shouted out to him, “Hey, the phones are over there!” With everyone staring at him now, he pretended to make a call. Quite terribly though, because he didn’t put that money in the phone. What a surprise.

Guy asked me the other day, “so what are you reading?”
And I replied, “A Star Trek book. I’m almost always reading Star Trek books.”

The train is great because I’ve seriously read around 40 books this year. The commute gives me plenty of time to read. I just happened to be reading another Star Trek book this morning, one about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Bajorans are those aliens with the nose ridges, and wear the big earrings.

Like this guy…

So I get off the train at White Plains this morning, I go downstairs to sit, and I am like, “holy crap! Is that guy wearing a Bajoran earring?!”

Nope, he isn’t.

I guess I looked too quick. Anyone that has spent any time at White Plains knows this guy. He’s the one who is always wearing a winter coat, even on the hottest days of summer. He also gets into good conversations with himself. I thought the earrings were so great I took a picture… only later on did I notice he was also carrying a purse. These spectacular fake-bling earrings were on both ears… and he was also wearing a fat rope chain.

Like this, just add girly fake clipon earrings

What a normal day in White Plains.

When it comes to crazy people, White Plains station has no shortage of them. From now on I think I will officially dub the man which I’ve talked about a few times as Mr. Chicago, as he always seems to be talking about Chicago. This morning I was sitting waiting for the shuttle, and he sat down next to me. He was having a long conversation with himself, parts of which sounded like they were complete gibberish. He also described a fat woman that looked like Johnny Damon, and about how he would have beaten someone up, had he not been “drugged into submission.” I imagine this guy knows all about being drugged.

I never got around to mentioning it, but a few weeks back White Plains got some new signage. The old signage had a black stripe on the top, not the blue stripe consistent with the rest of the Harlem Line stations. Here is a delightful photo I took of an M7a coming into the station, you can see the new sign over on the other side of the tracks.

Unfortunately, the schedule board signs around the station have not been working too well. If anyone was curious, they are apparently run on Windows XP:

Though it would have been a little bit more amusing had it been like this:

Usually they work pretty well, and I’ve certainly talked about how I liked them before… of course I only like them when they are working properly.

And for no apparent reason, here is a picture of Peggy, my favorite one-legged pigeon.

This week has been rather hot. The trains have been hot. Some of the air conditioners are not working properly. As conductor Guy said, “It is so hot you could cook brownies in here.”

Inevitably what happens in the heat? People sweat. If you are some of the great people who hang out in the train station of White Plains, sweating doesn’t stop you from wearing your clothes many days in a row… as I doubt you have an entire collection of shirts that say: “My imaginary friend says you have severe mental problems.”

The Chicago-obsessed, taxi screaming, crazy man also wears the same clothing over again. I saw him over by the telephone last night and saw he had some sort of nametag or ticket in the transparent side pocket of his bag. So I walked past him to see what exactly it was. It looked like some sort of train ticket that actually said Chicago on it. It looked nothing like this ticket, but it would be certainly amusing if it had. And if this guy had photoshop skillz, no doubt it would have been like this, instead of a fake computer print-out.

On the other hand, at least these people stay away from me… and they aren’t this guy:

That’s real nice dude, as if putting your feet up on the seats wasn’t nice enough, he decided to take off his dirty, smelly sandals. And then proceeded to pick his feet. Thankfully conductor Peter came around and at least he stopped the feet picking, and put his shoes back on. Is this National Nail Week or something like that? With all the people I’ve seen picking, clipping and painting their nails, you’d think it was. You know what else is good? Showering, and changing your clothes every now and again.

A week or two ago I mentioned a man that was yelling at taxis beeping their horns… I tend to see this man a lot, some days he is quiet, other days not so much. Today was one of those not so much days. He is a rather large man, and I don’t tend to associate giggling with a person like that. Giggling is like a schoolgirl type of thing… but he was certainly giggling.

Some trains were apparently running late this morning, and the announcement system announces what trains and how late they are. The train to Southeast was running about ten minutes late, trains heading into the city seemed to be on time. Mr. Giggles apparently thinks he is somewhere else, and shouts out, “The train to New York is late,” he giggles for a few moments, and then completes the thought, “because it had to stop in CHICAGO first.”

Apparently he was looking for attention and wasn’t getting any, so he decided to begin interrupting people’s conversations. A man and woman to my right were discussing how their shuttle was late. Mr. Giggles chimes in and says, “Amtrak does allow stopovers.” The man and woman look at him and say, “What?” Giggles continues, pointing up where the train platforms are, “The trains. Amtrak does allow stopovers.”

This is Metro North, my friend… though of course that is probably the man’s problems.

If I owned a building that had an escalator in it, I would frequently switch the direction on it, just to screw with people.  I can’t actually recall a time where I’ve actually seen an escalator  changed to go in the alternate direction… well that is until today. Apparently some funny person at the White Plains train station decided to do so. The north side escalator, which normally goes down, was going up. The south side escalator was not working. (So I am sure this wasn’t a joke, probably a conscious decision, in that it is easier to carry heavy items down stairs than it is to carry them up)

As I was riding up the escalator, I shouted out to my friend, “What the heck is this shit? Are they trying to fuck with us today?” A man observing at the top level began laughing. I’m not sure how long it had been going the opposite direction, but every time a train pulled into the station, it was absolute hilarity. Nowadays people are so focused on their technology, whether it be texting or talking on a phone, or maybe listening to some music, but people really don’t pay attention to what is going on. Several of these people just walked right onto the escalator without even noticing it was going the alternate direction, and were firmly deposited right back where they started. Other people gave some funny looks and walked away. And my favorites were the people that just walked over and stared dumbfounded at the escalator for far too long, perhaps contemplating the meaning of life as they blocked the people attempting to come up.

Let’s just say I was very depressed that I didn’t have my camera on me to take some video of that.

The other freak out of the day was me playing a joke on my friend. Monday morning as we waited for the shuttle bus to come pick us up at the station, I saw a man walk by and he was glancing at her. Just joking around I said, “oh look at him look at you, I think he likes you!” Silly innocent comment. Well fast-forward to later in the day, my friend comes into my office and work and hands me a paper printout of a mugshot. She said, “Is this the man we saw this morning at the train station?!” Apparently she was watching America’s Most Wanted online during her lunch break, and up comes a picture of a guy who is wanted for two murders. It also said that it is possible he is on the run in New York. I assured her that it wasn’t the guy we saw. But quite honestly, I can’t remember. I highly doubt it though.

Anyways, today I thought about Google searching the name of the man, so I asked my friend if she still had the printout she showed me earlier. She left it with me, and I said I would look and see online. Later in the day, I went to her cubicle and said that I had found information about him online. The conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Yeah, I saw a website that said they saw him not too long ago in New York. At a train station too!
Her: What train station? Was it Metro North?
Me: Yeah, I think so… I’m trying to remember the name of the station, oh what is it called? Oh yeah, Fleetwood.

Of course this freaked her out, since Fleetwood is the station that she rides from… and I was totally bullshitting. So you probably don’t have to worry about that America’s Most Wanted fugitive, Calvin R. Sinclair. But hey, if you did happen to see him, you’d probably notice. He’s only 4′7″. There are elementary-schoolers taller than him! I know by experience… I’m pretty darn short, and even *I* am taller than him!