Day 17

I should really think about a career change. With the things I see every day in my life and the people I meet commuting on the train I could be a great comedian. Take Mr. Kleenex from today; I've never had a more useless yet entertaining day on the train than I did today.

For those of you wondering how the rest of my day went before I move on to comedy, here's a short summary: I woke up late, forgot my notebook, went to class, and then left just moments before my brain shut down from overuse. Typical day for me. And truly not that exciting for those of you who would be tempted to think otherwise.

As I walked down the block to the train, though, my day became more exciting. First of all, the train waited for me a whole ten minutes. For me! I saw it sitting there, about six blocks away with several people running frantically to catch it. I wasn't really in the mood to run and figured it would be gone by the time I got to the terminal anyway that I just kept going my slow pace down the street reminiscing about the wonderful 5-hour lecture I had just left.

To my surprise, though, the train waited at the terminal the whole time. The driver even opened the door for me when I got to the station. First a corvette, now I have customized train service. Who could have ever imagined that my life could be going so great?

Actually, the train just couldn't get a door shut and was sitting there while a technician worked on it. They opened the door when I walked up to test that it was working again.

Then I met Mr. Kleenex. He was standing in the doorway because all the seats on the train were taken. I call him "Mr. Kleenex" because he was wiping his nose every thirty seconds and seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of Kleenex tissues in his right pocket. I'm actually glad that he wiped his nose that often because the one time he didn't I was immediately stricken with fear for my own health. His nose seemed to be drooling; but I'll save you the rest of the word picture so you might be able to sleep tonight.

He commented as I got on the train that I had made it just in time and would have had to wait another thirty minutes had I missed the door. I agreed and regretted responding a moment later. The rest of the train ride consisted with person anecdotes about basketball players with Ph.D.s, the army's ability (or lack thereof) to properly inform officers of flight times, and stories about who in Mr. Kleenex's family does what or is related to whom or works where or did what favor for what other family member ... Needless to say, I seemed to be expected to know every member of his family because he used only nicknames to refer to them and I have no idea who they are.

In between nose-wipes he told me all about his brother with a doctorate, who is married to a very nice woman and has three daughters. The eldest shares a birthday with Mr. Kleenex and the other two are quiet and hard to get to know. Mr. Kleenex also has a close friend in the legislature upstate who changed the entire government bureaucracy to help him get out of one rule or another when he was in trouble. He was in the army for a few years and lived in Korea, but missed his flight and was almost counted as AWOL once.

There are many other details to Mr. Kleenex's life, but I'll spare you the long story. It was an interesting conversation to be involved in and I learned a lot about his life and character. But I never did get his name, hence the reference to "Mr. Kleenex." He apologized the whole time for his cold, so I can't really blame him for the nose-wiping.

What makes this comical was his insistence that he shake my hand and wish me luck with school as I got off the train. I'm glad he had the courtesy to switch his tissue to his left hand before shaking mine, though.

Good thing my hands are washable.

Day 17 or 100 - Summary: Life can be funny when little ironies present themselves.