After a lovely evening in New York City last Friday, I was delighted to find an empty row on the Metro North train back to Connecticut. I turned my iPod on, and by the time we were moving I was nearly asleep . . .
The next thing I knew a loud voice was coming over the seat back saying, “Seriously, you gotta turn that sh** off!” I was absolutely mortified. Had I just committed one of the deadly sins of mass transit? Could my fellow passengers actually hear the dulcet tones of the Beastie Boys? Was I listening to music at a volume so high that Christina would never speak to me again? I immediately paused the music and turned the volume down, but the shouting persisted. I took my earbuds out and quickly realized what all the fuss was about. Passed out in the seat in front of me were two people who had apparently set an alarm for 1:20am. A phone alarm. A loud, beeping phone alarm. And they were paying just as much attention to it as I pay to my alarm on a typical weekday morning. Which is to say, none at all.
Another passenger, I’ll call her Jane, took matters into her own hands—standing over them and doing her best to wake them without resorting to physical assault. Jane finally roused the woman just enough for her to assure Jane she didn’t have an alarm. Helpful. As the woman was drifting swiftly back to sleep, Jane immediately stepped in and gently coerced her into rifling through her companion’s pockets. No alarm in pocket one, so Rip Wan Winkle started to lean back. Again, Jane interceded and encouraged her to try another pocket. Apparently the alarm had been considerably muffled by the pocket, as now that the phone had been found and removed, it was distinctly louder. The woman looked at it as though she had never seen a phone before, but luckily, the increased volume of the beeping finally woke her cohort up. Jane instructed him to turn it off. He muttered something about the fact that the alarm was set so they wouldn’t miss their stop in Stamford. Stamford, as in my stop. Stamford, as in 1:56am. Demonstrating superb negotiating skills, Jane assured him that no one on the train would let them sleep through their stop, and then worked with him to figure out exactly how to silence that darned alarm.
As it turns out, they came mighty close to sleeping through their stop. Despite the best efforts of the people around them, they both fell back asleep no less than three times in the 90 seconds before the train pulled into the station.
And that is why I don’t dare sleep on the train. Unless I’m really really tired. Then I definitely don’t sleep on the train.
5 comments:
great story! thanks for sharing!
That's a very good moral to an excellent tale.
I would always speak to you, you may just have to read my lips. This had me laughing out loud and I haven't done that in a very long time!
My friend Christene would regularly fall asleep on the train from central London to Epsom in South London. No one would wake her up and it meant she routinely found herself in a town called... Dorking.
I think the only thing worse than falling asleep and missing your stop would be finding yourself in a town called Dorking. Please tell me there's a train out of Dorking!
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