Another Reason to Hate the 6 Train

Let's talk about the subway for a minute, OK?

I find the 6 train to be horrendous. I don't ride it often, but when I do all manner of things seem to go awry. For instance, the light up board tells me that an uptown 6 will be there in 3 minutes. But 45 minutes later, I'm still waiting on the platform with 5,000 other subway riders. Or I'm on my way downtown and I somehow get stuck juuustttt past the Hunter College Stop, in the tunnel. Which means you cannot escape. You just sit there in the dark tunnel with your subway neighbors for 25 minutes until you start moving again (this has happened to me a lot...once three times in one week).

Or its last Saturday and you are at the Union Square stop waiting for the 6 to take you to SoHo to babysit (yup friends...babysit) and you see THIS!

I feel like I must have taken the 6 from Union Square before, but I have never seen this TERRIFYING SITUATION. Do you see what that says? It says "Stand Clear of the Moving Platform".

Is it clear to you what part of that platform is going to be moving? Because to me, it was totally unclear. Do I stay away from the edge part that looks like teeth (which is too close to the edge to begin with) or can I not stand where that writing is?

There was a girl standing right near those words and she had on those feather eyelashes and she was on a date with a man in orange pants and brown pointy shoes and I wanted to yell "MA'AM YOU HAVE TO MOVE, YOU MIGHT FALL OVER THE EDGE WHEN THE PLATFORM MOVES AND ORANGE PANTS HERE IS TOTALLY NOT SAVING YOU".

I was literally hyperventilating with Ira Glass of This American Life speaking to me in my ears. I need you to know that I literally waited less than two minutes for the 6 train to get there. In the span of 120 seconds though, millions of terrible platform moving images flew through my head. But then the train arrived and all that happened was that those teethy things moved out about six inches. And they didn't even move to close the gap between platform and train until the train was stopped in the station.

I felt totally duped by the 6 train. It had me terrified for six measly inches. And so, I entered the train, removed my scarf because I was terribly warm from the 2 minutes of terror I had just experiences and proceeded onto SoHo.

One day I will get you 6 train. One day.

Happy Weekend to YOU!