Luckily I had my notes from 9/7:

I took the C local uptown because there were plenty of seats, the A was crowded, and I could take the C, a slightly slower boat, to 168th where I could switch to the A for the short last leg of the ride to Dyckman Street.

As these things often happen, the C train inexplicably stopped in the tunnel a few hundred feet from the last stop, 168th Street, the stop where I’d catch the A for the five minute ride home.   The train sat in darkness for three or four minutes, the engines silent.  Suddenly the engines rumbled to life, the train lurched forward two or three feet, then stopped again, and went silent.  Another few minutes passed.  Though I had nowhere to be, this was annoying, since it would likely mean missing the connecting A train and waiting another ten or fifteen minutes for the next one.  For nothing.

The speaker started crackling, the conductor about to begin a belated apology for the delay.  Before he could even thank us for our patience the train rolled slowly into 168th Street.  Very slowly, but not slowly enough that I didn’t see the A train across the platform, its doors closed, poised, either just having pulled in or just about to pull out.  

It happened in slow motion.  We sat on our side of the platform, with our doors closed, looking at the immobile A train, with its doors closed.  If we were pirates we could have swung easily from one train to the other, daggers in our teeth.  

In the way of such things the doors of the C took a minute to open at that last stop and the A train, after waiting with doors closed for just long enough to give hope, pulled slowly out, towards my stop five minutes up the line.

The conductor of the C, its run now at an end, was looking out his window and I took the opportunity to vent to him a bit.  “Did you see that A train leave right as we pulled in?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said pleasantly, “I didn’t notice it.  It was odd that they had us waiting in the tunnel, you know, because we were already late.”  Clearly he worked for a messed up transit authority and didn’t get too bent out of shape when stupid things happened. 

I smiled at the conductor, who seemed like a pleasant enough fellow.  “It’s frustrating that the A didn’t wait another fifteen seconds and now I’ll wait 15 minutes for the next one,” I opined.  He nodded, thoughtfully.  Then I had another annoying thought, “and we can’t even assault you guys any more.”

I was referring to the new law of the last few years making it a felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison, to slap or punch a conductor or bus driver who closes a door in your face or otherwise dares you to be indignant or unruly.

The conductor gave me a big smile and in the same NY second retracted his head and slid his window shut.  I smirked and settled in for my wait on the broiling, airless platform.