I?m sure that there were those of us who live and/or work in New York City dreading a repeat of yesterday?s commuting events. Although there was rain off and on this morning, it was smooth sailing on the subway. Yesterday was a whole other animal.

A random straphanger on the subway hit it right on the nose: ?The MTA is clueless on a normal day. When things go wrong, it?s just chaos.? I couldn?t agree more. Sometimes I think that Mother Nature throws the weather pattern into a tizzy just to watch the MTA cause more confusion than it solves. Their current slogan is ?Going your way.? I would like to propose an addendum to that:

?The MTA: Going your way?until some sort of natural disaster happens. Then we pretty much make things up as we go along.?

It was raining pretty hard when I stepped out of the door yesterday. I was determined not to let things get me down: not the weather, not the job, not anything. So the meditation started the moment I walked outside and put up my umbrella. Of course, the umbrella didn?t do a bit of good as the rain was coming down at an angle. The bottom of my pants were soaked?almost up to the crooks of my knees. I?m standing at the bus stop with another brother whose umbrella is twice as big as mine, his pants soaked also. And we?re looking at each other as if to say, ?Why are we even using these things? It?s pointless.?

Bus picks us up and we?re whisked to the subway station. I think I boarded the train around 7:45 A.M. Usually, this is a 45-minute trip at the most. I didn?t get to work yesterday until 10:15 A.M. Six stops into my trip, the train sat for what seemed like 20 minutes due to a sick passenger. Once we went underground, things got worse. My train emptied everyone out at the 149th Street-Grand Concourse stop. Flooding problems had killed West Side service. Nothing was running: no 1, 2, 3, or 9. I think the A, C, and E were affected also. So everything was running on the East Side, which meant crossed signals, misinformation, and maddening delays.

The next express train I boarded turned into a local around 125th Street. I don?t think I need to tell you how crowded that train was. I remained surprisingly calm throughout all of this, just closed my eyes and meditated. People around me cracked a few jokes and shared stories about their traveling mishaps. One man commented that he never took a local train before today. ?I didn?t even think the trains stopped at 77th Street,? he said.

On the plus side, I was almost dry by the time I got to the office. I wasn?t the only co-worker with a horror story about the subway, so when I finally arrived, it wasn?t news to anyone what had happened to me. Thankfully, yesterday was our breakfast day at work ? folks bring bagels in and all that. Along with the bagels was a cookie platter with plenty of oatmeal raisin still left. So I happily munched on some cookies, checked my messages, fired up the computer, and listened to WFMU?s Listener Hour. The show from last Saturday was hosted by Otis Fodder. An interesting character, he hosts a website that?s sort of a portal to incredibly strange music and a showcase for his various projects. His hour-long show was dedicated to the music of high school bands. You haven?t lived until you?ve heard a high school band perform Rod Stewart?s ?Do You Think I?m Sexy??