My Daily Commute

Daily Commute

My alarm won’t stop buzzing in my ear, the back of my head, and throughout my entire body. It slowly rips me out of bed like trying to move furniture that’s nailed to the floor. Waking up early for work is one of the worst things in the universe.
My day doesn’t start until I get to the train station. Manhasset is a small train station with only one platform, unlike every other station that have two one for each direction. I never pay attention to the details of the station; I’m in a daze until I hear the train horn steaming down the rails like a close play at home plate. I walk onto the cold dark train, and take my seat squished in between the blue and green seats with the faded plastic wall paper that looks like the worst fake marble possibly ever made. All that keeps me sane is my blue iPod that takes my mind off of my surroundings. Before I can put my headphones in I can hear an old man calling his daughter and asking about his grandkids. I feel like he’s just calling to have this conversation in public. Every single morning this man calls and somebody always has to make a comment about his grandkids, and of course, he has pictures in his wallet to show the entire car. The train to me is like a metal coffin, dragging its dead crew and passengers into the one of the most densely populated cities in the entire world.
When I get out of my Train in Penn station, I don’t pay attention; I’m still dreary from waking up as the train jerks to a stop in as soon at it arrives in Manhattan. I finally wake up when I go up the escalator right onto 32nd and 7th avenue in the front of Madison Square Garden. I only have to walk one painted block of tall almost limestone colored buildings that surrounds what seems to be like the rest of the island. The buildings are taller than shadows that stretch across the biggest fields. I get dizzy looking up at them, and have to squint my eyes to see the very top. Caroline, the secretary in the office is in the elevator with me as I ride up to the fifth floor. She talks about the Giants because she thinks I’m a boy and love the Giants, but I really could care less, I’m a Jets fan. I daze through my job as well. They delegate me, a first time intern with work that stumbles’ my mind and jumbles my thoughts that by the end of the day I am so exhausted I can only think about the air-conditioning waiting for me in my room. Every day my job drains me until I am completely running on empty, no gas at all.
The underbelly of Penn Station is really quite a work of interesting architecture. I guess the color doesn’t matter, but the Long Island Railroad section is actually a sight for sore eyes. It is shamelessly dirty and you walk into the armpit of the station in sweltering heat to get to the tracks and to the coffin, waiting to take you home.
Conductors are always much more angry on the way home. I always thought they would be much more cheery but they are working while they watch everybody else get to go home. If I make the 5:26 train, it is always this poor old women who struggles just to get to the end of each car. Her fingers grab my ticket to punch holes into its fake, plastic, papery surface while her knuckles look like they are stuffed with marbles and the worst arthritis I have ever seen.