Over the long weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Sarah Lawrence College, an all around better school than Hofstra. Why, you may foolishly ask? Because they offer a seminar called “Lube It Up”, that’s why. Who doesn’t want to be a part of that? The only thing at Hofstra that comes close to being that slick is your local Dude-Guy’s hair, which is decidedly less appealing, especially in the current context.
However, this week’s column is not about Sarah Lawrence. Sure they have a beautiful campus, progressive classes, and a six-dollar buffet with everything from waffles you make yourself to real eggs, but what I really want to talk about is how I got there. Yes folks, I’m talking about the Long Island Railroad.
Everyone who goes to Hofstra has been on it, and if you haven’t there is a good chance you don’t go to New York City often, in which case you should stop being such a huge townie. But I digress. I don’t care what you do; your experience on the LIRR is always going to involve adventure. And by adventure I mean black holes of logic. Here’s how a typical LIRR riding day goes.
You’re all set to go, but for some reason you don’t have a ride (i.e. your car is in the shop, your roommate is away, and the cab is fifty dollars), so you take the blue beetle. After the pain in your ass subsides from being bounced two and a half feet in the air after every bump for twenty minutes, you quickly realize that you have to pee for much the same reason. So you waddle to the bathroom only to find that it’s closed after 1pm. Also, the train you were trying to catch departed five minutes ago, meaning you’ll have to wait almost an hour for the next one. For some reason, Hofstra decided it was in the best interest of their students to time the buses so that you always miss the train. So, squeezing your thighs and feeling like the victim of some elaborate Rabinowitzian conspiracy, you sit down to wait.
What happens in the time between when you sit down and when you get on the train largely depends on whether you’re in Minneola or Hempstead station. In these modern days, Hofstra is nice enough to send the blue beetle to Minneola. Nobody knows when, but if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon that magical time frame, you will doubtless spend your waiting period admiring the day, the people, and the surprising lack of chewing gum on the floor. If, however, you end up at Hempstead, not only will you wonder at the surprising amount of chewing gum on the floor, you will also see something weird. My first time at Hempstead station, I watched a full-grown man floss his teeth with his ticket for well over five minutes.
Finally you get on the train, and by this time you really have to pee. You sniff yourself after you sit at the window of a three-seater and no one sits next to you, then proceed to fall asleep. Later, you are invariably woken up by the automated stop announcer screaming, “Holis!” The auto announcer hates Holis, and every time he has to say it the fact just makes him angry. You can hear it in his voice. Holis must have done something awful to the auto announcer. I’d do an investigative report, but it’s probably some dirty Long Island Railroad secret and I’d end up getting whacked by the mob…come on pseudonym, protect me!
So anyway, you finally get off the train and rush to the public restroom in Penn Station. The stench is so overwhelming that it seems that of the thousands of people who use it daily, none of them hit the toilet, and so ends your odyssey. That is, until you have to come back.
Yet the Long Island Railroad needs our love, just like anything else. We need to care for it, nourish it, and push it on its way. Just a little something extra to make those wheels turn, to loosen those pumps, and to maybe make the auto announcer say a nice word or two about Holis. When you come right down to it, all the LIRR needs is a little lube.
Woof, I really loved run on sentences. Sounds like I was really stretching to find something to be pissed about. I had plenty of things, but I wasn’t touching the real stuff. “Rabinowitzian” is a reference to then Hofstra president Stuart Rabinowitz. The execution needs work, but I still like the concept of the “Holis” joke. The dude really does yell that stop and no others.