I believe this is the the third week I’ve been taking a new train to work in the morning. I sort of got tired taking the train that came down from Wassaic… Golden’s Bridge was the last stop before White Plains, so there were always few seats, and lots of pushing and shoving to be the first to get in the doors of the train. Ten minutes earlier there is another train that is much less busy, and I can always find a seat without any difficulties.

Of course, there are still odd folks, as there are on probably every train. I made a post a week or so back about people drinking beer on the train on their way home… clearly those people are not cool. You can only be cool if you drink beer in the morning on the way TO work! Shoppers at Target of Mount Kisco, if you smell alcohol on a sales associate at around 8am you probably aren’t imagining it!

Today there was an intriguing man making a complete mess all over the train. There was a puddle underneath him, flowing into the aisles. Up against his crotch, he held a half-empty one gallon jug with water inside. It was a very odd way to be holding it. The lid was pointed down towards the floor, which I assume is where the puddle was coming from. If the jug was pointed the opposite way, I totally would have thought he’d be peeing in it. Thankfully I got off the train shortly after.

Yesterday my “lesbian lover” also made an appearance at the train station. She has an office down the hall from me at work, and the extent we speak is pretty much an occasional “good morning” or things of that nature. A few months back the woman turned up at the train station. She must have felt awkward being around hundreds of strangers, because she saw me and must have thought “That girl! I recognize her! Let’s have an awkward conversation, even though we’ve never talked and I really don’t know her… but hey, at least I know her more than all these other strangers!!” Another coworker that I wait with at the train station, didn’t realize she worked at our company as well, and was entirely convinced that she was a lesbian attempting to hit on me. Yesterday was the second time I’ve seen her at the train station. She didn’t see me, perhaps that is a good thing.

Lastly, I went looking for my chapstick in the bottom of my bag and instead of being able to find it, I found some delightful handouts I’ve received in the past few weeks. I recall seeing a bunch of people standing in the train station lobby looking all suspicious one day, and then they gave me this card:

(at least that is better than getting asked by an obnoxious man about fifty million times whether I was a registered member of the Democratic Party, like I did this morning) Oh, and my personal favorite, the “Jesus literature”. Those people are always passing shit out at the train station. Hey, at least I got one in ENGLISH this time!

In other news, Jesus literature does not burn very well. In case you like, wanted to make a fire with it or something. Just putting that out there…

Train stations have lots of people… so I guess if you want to get your message out to people, why not hand out propaganda at a train station? From Jesus literature to politicians, free samples to train maps, with a little bit of fearmongering thrown in, we see it all at White Plains train station. I was delighted to notice this morning that the lovely mustached man that I had seen some months earlier, the one who asked me if the pigeon hanging out in the train station had a ticket. He was promoting for some guy named Dan Schorr. In other news, Dan Schorr is also a pirate, the evidence of which is below.

Now I am real sorry I didn’t take that Jesus literature I was offered the other day to draw on that. Even though Goldens Bridge isn’t too busy of a station (compared to White Plains), people still come to hand things out every once and a while, but mostly to leave posters around. The posters never seem to stay long however. Perhaps MTA employees are removing these posters that shouldn’t be there? In my mind though, I imagine a much more amusing situation… considering that when one poster is removed, another has appeared in its place. Opponents go to the train station, rip down their rival’s posters, and then place their own. Here is a great poster I snapped an image of in the morning. How corny is that tagline? I can imagine that meeting. “We can advertise at the TRAIN STATION! On the right track! THE RIGHT TRACK! You get it?!”

Now free things are always nice, but even free things can be considered propaganda. At least to me. Who wants to give anyone free anything… unless it might convince a few of them to buy something? Vitamin Water 10 tried and failed, at least with me. Nasty shit that was. My favorite free thing though, was a nicely designed map of the MTA railroads. The MTA had a table set up one morning filled with maps and schedules and such. I actually keep this in my bag. I’ll probably never use it, but hey, if I ever happen to get lost on the Long Island Railroad again, I’ll have it!