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Today's "TheTrainInVain" blog post comes from Marsh, our Metro-North correspondent. Given the number of edits I made to his last post about the rules of eating on the train, he called me the Anna Wintour of blogging. I take that title very seriously and feel I must live up to it. With that in mind, I present to you Marsh's thoughts on sleeping on the train, with only a few helpful edits from me. 

If I had to come up with a number, I'd say that I have slept with over 4,000 people.

No, I'm not an adult film performer or even a cast member of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."  But if you calculate two Metro-North trips a day, five days a week for eleven years, with four weeks of yearly vacation baked in, it comes out to 48 weeks x 10 trips per week = 480 trips per year. Over eleven years, that's nearly 5,300 rides. It's a solid bet that I've fallen asleep on 82.9% of them.

I can't pin down the reason why I lie awake, tossing and turning for hours in a king sized bed and yet fall into a coma the second the conductor takes my ticket.  Maybe it's the dull roar of the engine.  Maybe it's that my five-year old doesn't jump onto my seat as we approach 125th Street and kick me in the kidneys.  It could just be that I enjoy sleeping with strangers.

Sleeping with 4,000 fellow commuters is bordering on Wilt Chamberlain territory.  Since we’re in the middle of March Madness, I’ll bring up another impressive Wilt statistic. He played fourteen seasons without fouling out of a game.

Me? I’ve gone eleven years without sleeping through my stop.  Not once have I woken up in Poughkeepsie, Peekskill, or Peoria and been forced to do the “walk of shame” to the other side of the platform to wait for the off peak local to get back home.

So, if you happen to be on the train sitting next to a guy who spontaneously passes out, and whose body starts to drift in your direction with his head coming to a rest on your shoulder… His name is Marsh. And he promises not to drool on your jacket. 

Thanks Marsh.  I had been thinking of getting you an air pillow for your birthday, but it is clear that you don't need one.  Very impressive that you've never slept past your stop.  I, however, have done the walk of shame to the off peak side in a far-flung location.  I will share that story in a future blog post.  - David

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