Train Hazards

I often write about the kinds of things that can exasperate us on the train.  But have you ever thought about hazards to your belongings and to your person?  Dangers exist!  We MUST face these things in order to be safe!  Forewarned is forearmed, so read carefully.  This is more of a public service announcement than a blog post.

Sit and Rip!  Take a look at the armrest on the M-7 train of the Long Island Rail Road.  Looks pretty innocuous, right?  What harm could it possibly cause?  Well.  Just imagine you're wearing a pair of nice slacks.  You sit down, the armrest somehow slides into your pocket.  Your rear end reaches its final resting position, and as it does, RRRRIIIIIPPPPP.  In nanoseconds, you've gone from sharp dresser to homeless chic.  Fortunately, the LIRR has made some adjustments to these armrests, but the danger is still there.

Mind the armrest.  The LIRR used to reimburse for these kinds of accidents, but I doubt they still do.  They have numerous pension scams to fund.  There's no more budget for your pants.

Armrests are waiting patiently to destroy your pants.

Dropped belongings into mystery liquid on the floor.  Ever get on a train and find a nice seat on a crowded car, only to find it is available is because there is mystery liquid all over the floor around the seat?  You take the seat anyway, because you're tired and you don't feel like standing.  You pull out some important papers to review, and get distracted by the woman on the other side of the aisle who is on the phone providing important details of her recent colonoscopy.  What happens to those papers?  That's right.  Down they go.  If you're really unlucky, you had your coat in your lap, and it went down too to mingle with the papers and the gloppy liquid on the floor.  Yuck. Gross.  Sorry, there's nothing the LIRR can do for you.  There's no budget for cleaning up mystery liquid.

Watch the gap.  Or mind the gap, if you're from England.  Come on, really?  Is it so hard to step OVER the gap?  Is this not common sense?  Does the concept of stepping off the platform and onto the train befuddle you?  Does the whole process make you nervous?  Well, don't worry if that's the case.  The LIRR has invested $829,931,002.14 in signage and recorded messages from important and well known safety experts such as Matt Lauer, Alec Baldwin, and Joe Pepitone to remind you to step over the gap.  These highly useful announcements play all day long on the Hicksville platform.

So, you can't get the LIRR to pay for mystery liquid removal from your clothes.  You can't get the LIRR to pay for new pants because the old ones were destroyed by a pants-eating armrest.  Well you're still alive, aren't you?  Thank the heroes of LIRR Management.  It's because of them that you haven't fallen into the gap between the train and the platform.

Happy commuting, and may you encounter uncommon sense.

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