Subway Stories

I was supposed to have a meeting yesterday morning at my internship for our digital marketing department. So I left my apartment a half an hour earlier than usual (thank goodness). I took my usually fifteen minute boiling summer stroll to the subway station to hop on the 6 train (which just so happens to be taken more times per day than every other subway in America combined.) I walked in right as the train was pulling in-SCORE! my mind chimed, I was early, the subway was there when I was, I found an empty seat, AND I was going to have time to pick up my daily breakfast at Panera and have time to actually sit down and eat! I waited on the subway and began to play my usual silly connect the dot game on my phone, you know the one where you have to connect all of the dots of the same colors together, and they always end up looking like a corn maze? The 6 train, is in my opinion, the nicest subway in Manhattan. It's one of the newer, if not the newest trains. But every now and then, they rotate the trains to different tracks. So yesterday they had the old yucky orange train (the seats are orange, not the actual train) instead, with the train's dispatcher announcing the stops on a scratchy overhead speaker that reminds me of the morning announcements from elementary school, instead of the clear automated computer man's voice on the normal 6 train. While I was playing my colorful dot-to-dot, the elementary speakers announced that the train was on a slight delay. No worries-I'm early! I smiled to myself. A moment lated the speaker-women announced again that the trains were delayed, and added that it was because of a police investigation at the 51st St. stop. I have Googled, and Googled and I still cannot figure out what they were investigating! Needless to say, 20 minutes later I was still dot-to-dotting, getting an every other minute announcement that the train was still delayed. At the 20 minute mark when she changed the wording to "expect further delays" I knew it was time to go on a taxi hunt. Sadly, by this time, half of the subway station was also out taxi hunting. I also discovered yesterday that there is apparently a bus stop right by the subway stop. When I walked out of the subway, I had to swim my way through the sea of people waiting for the bus. They were lined up twice as long as the bus was and just as wide! I made it through without drowning, but I still couldn't find a taxi. I got my morning exercise in by walking about 10 blocks before finally hailing a cabbie. At this point I was for sure going to miss the meeting and finally got ahold of my boss, only to find out that the meeting was cancelled. And apparently today just wasn't the day for travel because she then told me that her train coming from Jersey was completely down as well! I proceeded to enjoy the air conditioned cab ride to my long awaited breakfast at Panera that I did have time to enjoy. Welcome to the wonderful world of New York City! -Holly