In Which a Black Rat Crosses My Path on Friday the 13th
Last summer, I made a bet with myself that every single time I waited for the subway, I’d see a rat running along the tracks. And wouldn’t you know it–every time I had more than a moment’s wait, I’d spot one, and more than a few times, I saw two chasing each other. I guess it got to be too normal an occurrence after a while, because I rarely think to do it anymore. But yesterday morning, I didn’t have to.
I’ve been reading magazines on the subway a lot lately, finding that it relaxes me to the point that I’m not bothered by things like the seated person in front of me kicking my feet repeatedly while I stand crushed between two unshowered men, gripping the slimy metal bar above my head. I like to get on the last car of the downtown 4/5 train in the morning, get off still reading, and keep on reading while I leisurely walk to the staircase that exits the station, mostly because it really seems to piss off all the people who’re in a major hurry.
Yesterday when the doors to the car opened at Bowling Green, I stepped out holding my magazine and then almost dropped it a second later when A RAT up and RAN ACROSS THE PLATFORM right in FRONT OF ME. Some people gasped. Some people broke the no-talking-in-the-morning-on-the-subway rule and murmured to themselves. Everyone turned and watched it bound to the end of the platform. One man–out of place amongst the business suits and briefcases in a t-shirt and a backpack–pointed his finger and lifted his thumb to make a gun shape and pretended to shoot the thing until it jumped onto the tracks and disappeared.
Ahhhhh, Friday the 13th.
Do you always wonder about those pretend gun people? Anytime I see people doing that, I automatically assume they tortured animals when they were children.
OMG, you know what?–today, I was walking toward the back of my office, and my co-worker Jeff was walking toward me, and my first inclination was to pull out the pretend gun. I did it with both hands, though, which makes it more playful than threatening, right? RIGHT?
A couple minutes later, I directed him to this post via IM for unrelated reasons, and he was like, “Do you even READ the comments to your entries?” And I was like, “Ahhh, CRAP!”
Good story.
Both hands as in two separate guns that you could remove from pretend holsters at your sides? Or both hands as in fingers laced, like you’re imitating Charlie’s Angels?
I need to know.
Gah! Wrong e-mail address = no David Bowie Gravatar!
That’s better.
I completely blame failings like this for no one else jumping on the Gravatar bandwagon.
Wait! There’s no gravatar up there, either! I used a different e-mail address, but it was still the wrong one.
Now THERE we go.
Wow, I suck.
I see that you took my advice and wrote a post with big, bold capital letters. I only read the sentence with the bold letters, but it was pretty good. Hopefully the rest was just as interesting.
I actually thought of you when I wrote that, you know. And I was like, “Hey, maybe Jack will actually read one sentence of this post when he comes to click on my banner.” Thanks for being SO PREDICTABLE.
What would it take to get you to read an entire post? Writing it in varying sequences of bold, italics, and underline, with multiple text colors and fonts?