Local, Express

Dear Diary:

A Coney Island-bound F train pulled into the Jay Street-Metro Tech station. The doors opened. People got off. People got on. The doors remained open as a man’s voice came over the speaker.

“This train will be going express,” he said. “Next stop: Seventh Avenue.”

Those who needed the stations being bypassed got off to wait for the next train.

A woman’s voice came over the speaker:

“This train is not going express,” she said. “Next stop will be Bergen Street.”

The people who had gotten off to wait for a local got back on. A few passengers smiled at the mix-up in communication.

The man’s voice returned.

“This train is going express,” he said. “Express, express, express. Next stop will be Seventh Avenue.”

Exasperated, those who needed the local stops knew the drill. Off the train they went.

But wait. Here came the woman’s voice.

“Local, local, local! We’re going local.”

By now, everyone was laughing and shaking their heads.

Dear reader, we went local.

— Diane Fromharz

Short Bronx Ride

Dear Diary:

I was on a Metro-North train going into the city. At some point, I noticed two boys get on.

When the conductor came through to collect tickets, one of the boys asked sheepishly how much it cost.

“Where are you going?” the conductor asked.

Yankee Stadium, the boy said. It was two stops away.

The conductor asked how much money they had.

One dollar, the boys said.

With a straight face, the conductor said he was not sure that would be enough. He said he might have to stop the train and put the boys off for lack of funds.

Then he smiled.

“Keep the dollar,” he said. “And buy yourself something at the ballpark.”

— Maggie Loewenwarter

Two-Drink Minimum

Dear Diary:

I was a child of Chicago’s northern suburbs. In summer 1975, when I was 12, my 23-year-old brother, who had attended New York University, arranged for me to come to Manhattan for a week’s vacation. After I got there, we went to the Other End (a.k.a. the Bitter End).

“There’s a cover charge and a two-drink minimum,” the man at the door said. “Your small friend here can have his in hot chocolate.”

Michael Urbaniak and Fusion were performing. I had all of their albums. I played in my junior high school jazz band and I got to talk shop with the drummer between sets.

A waitress accidentally spilled beer on me during the show. In the taxi on the way back to my hotel, the driver turned around.

“It smells like the little man had too much to drink tonight,” he said.

— Roger Fortune

Tumbling

Dear Diary:

There was nothing more restful to me than strolling up Broadway after a day at my advertising job.

People thought I was crazy to walk from 16th Street to my apartment on East 83rd. But as long as there was no rush, I found it to be the perfect way to decompress and enjoy the city.

Most days I would walk with my best friend, the copywriter at the agency, and shoot the breeze about anything and everything.

One time, we somehow got onto the subject of being total losers at sports, specifically in junior high school when teams were being chosen. It had always been a lesson in humiliation for both of us. We both looked athletic, but we both totally lacked coordination or interest.

“But I was good at tumbling,” I said.

“Seriously?” my colleague said.

“Watch this!”

I dropped back a few steps and proceeded to do my first cartwheel in 20 years in front of the Rivoli Theater, a movie palace that is now long gone.

“Very impressive,” my colleague said.

Just then a woman sitting in traffic honked her horn and rolled down her window.

“You bent your knees,” she said.

I walked back to my starting point and did another one.

“Now that,” she said, “is a cartwheel.”

— Tom Ickert

At the Garage

Dear Diary:

For years, I parked my car in the same Upper East Side garage whenever I drove to the neighborhood from my home in Westchester County. I did it about four times a year.

The same garage attendant was there every time. He always said he wouldn’t charge me the extra fee required for my S.U.V. because I was a regular.

I suspected that he said it to everyone who owned an S.U.V. in hopes of being rewarded with a generous tip — which he was every time.

Once I arrived at the garage in a new sedan. The attendant said nothing as he handed me the ticket.

Aha!, I thought. I was right. He had no idea who I was.

When I returned hours later, the attendant retrieved my car. He didn’t say anything until I handed him the usual tip.

“Thank you,” he said. “Did you sell your old car?”

— Marilyn Matlick

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee

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