I walked in the door like 2 minutes ago. From Harlem. Why is that weird? Because I left here almost 2 hours ago to go to church. Where is church? In Hartsdale ... one train stop from here. I got up earlier than I usually do on a Saturday. Had breakfast. Checked my email. Checked my email while eating breakfast. Really nice out. Birds chirping. Sun shining. I showered. Got dressed. Grabbed my keys. Grabbed some money and 2 tickets to Hartsdale I didn't use the week before (I got on and off the trains before they picked the tickets up. No ... not on purpose). The weird thing is .... I haven't been to church 2 consecutive weeks. Something always seems to happen. I have to wait on the cable guy. Or I wake up with a bad headache. For some reason I noticed that yesterday and decided that I have to break that pattern. I'm weird ... I know.

I rush over to the train station and get upstairs just as the train closed the doors and left.

"Gggrr ... excuse me. Was that a local?" I asked two old ladies standing there.

"No. Express," she smiled back.

"Thanks," I smiled and sighed.

About 20 minutes passed and another train pulled in.

"Thank God. This has to be a local," I thought as I walked on.

The train was pretty full because of St. Patrick's Day parade. Its not usually like that. I've never had to stand on a Metro North train. So I'm standing there looking around at all the green. Green buttons. Green pins. Green sweaters. Green tees. Green sparkly eye-shadow. I'm almost in a trance and then ....

".... express. This is an express train to Grand Central. First stop ... 125th street."

"Shit!"

The doors slammed shut and I suddenly realized how many people were really on the train and there's no way I could've even made it to the door in time.

"Ok .... well I'll just get off at the first stop and come back," I thought. "Its no big deal right?"

I watched as we blurred past Hartsdale ... Scarsdale ... I mean .. there was no turning back. I felt like I was in a bad dream. And what really pissed me off was thinking that the local train probably came 5 minutes after.

Then I realized ... "Oh .. my .. gosh! I have a Hartsdale ticket. Grand Central tickets are 5 bucks."

And of course with the bad luck that I have ... after thinking that ... I heard: "Tickets please." and that little clicking noise the conductor makes when he punches whatever the hell he's punching. I shot my fingers into my jacket pockets and swirled my fingers around .. searching for the gold dollars I dropped in there. I had like 5 dollar bill too. I gave him my ticket and the difference and felt totally relieved. Relieved but still slightly pissed.

I got off at 125th Street - Harlem. I could've gone to Grand Central ... but for what? I didn't have enough money to take the subway or anything. Just enough to get my butt back to White Plains. I took the elevator down to the ticket booth .. checked the schedule and headed back up to the platform. It was a great day out. I stood there waiting. Thin, red plaid shirt, brown pants and a cheap black Marine jacket I got from Canal Jeans (that phantom store I was looking for). Waiting there and still pissed. Waiting for what seemed to be forever before the train came. I tripple-checked to make sure it was going to White Plains. Got on and just enjoyed the ride back.