Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to the Long Island Rail Road as soon as I can.
To be fair, Metro North will sometimes do just as well. Yet in the Summery time of year I find it nice to take the LIRR to the shore and open the flood gates of my soul and allow the dark, base material to flow out.
This past weekend was such an occasion. I had nothing to do on Saturday and I was restless and so I decided to take the LIRR to Oyster Bay. I arrived at the Pennsylvania Station at around 3:30 and bought a round-trip ticket for $13.50. I had some time to kill before my train so I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and chose to order a Colonel's Chicken Strip meal with a double order of potato wedges. This meal came with a biscuit, which is a good thing, and I washed everything down with a cold, fountain diet soda.
I must say, there is something wonderful about fried chicken and fried potatoes (if the KFC potato wedges are indeed fried). I got a little cup filled with gravy for dunking. The wedges were quite good. The chicken strips, sadly, were not up to par. They tasted as if they had been microwaved. Still, they were edible, and the gravy helped a good bit.
After my meal I sat in the LIRR waiting area for my train to be called. They kept showing this video about the gap between trains and the platform. "Watch the gap," they said. In England, they mentioned, they say "Mind the gap." But here in the U.S., it's "Watch the gap." Whatever. Anyway, the LIRR seems obssesed about the gap. They kept saying how they're making all these signs about watching the gap and they kept saying how, unfortunately, it's inevitable for there to be a gap.
Anyway, my train arrived and I was on my way. All in all, it was about a 1 hour, 30 minute journey. I read the New Yorker. There was an interesting article about something called Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, in which the sufferer uncontrollably harms himself, often by biting his mouth or his fingers (in some cases to the point of biting them off). The sufferer also will behave horribly to people he likes and nicely to people he doesn't care about, and, in addition, will often say the opposite of what he means. I should also mention there was a piece written by my former roommate, whose room I now occupy. It feels wonderful living in a room once occupied by a New Yorker writer. Anyway, congratulations to my old roommate for a job well done.
Well, I got to Oyster Bay and it was quite lovely.
After a while I decided to venture into the town, which was very cute and all that. I walked a couple of miles and ended up at a convenience store, where I purchased another fountain diet soda.
After my little adventure through town and to the convenience store I returned to the bay and sat for a while before it was time to catch the train back home. I felt very nice and good just sitting by the bay. I was very happy that I had made the trip.
A little later, as I was waiting on the platform for the train, I noticed the Oyster Bay sign, which, underneath, said "Watch the Gap." I sure will!
Don't forget to mind the gap! Oh, wait, this is America. I mean WATCH the gap.