New York Transit Users: Advice for Happier Mornings

You know how at least once a week, your train stalls for no reason and you sit there in (mostly) silence for 5 to 10 minutes before the conductor finally comes on the speaker to meekly announce that you're "being held momentarily by the train dispatcher"? Now, as intelligent adults, we know that the dispatcher is the person in the control room who keeps track of trains and traffic and schedules and turns the green track lights on or off to keep trains from accidentally plowing into each other underground. 

- BUT -

Wouldn't it make your day better if instead you thought of them as The Dispatcher, a demon-like apparition that appears in the darkness and threatens the lives of passengers with a horrible, slow, torturous and fiery demise (i.e. "disptach" them..TO HELL) ...unless the conductor can answer his malicious riddle? What if the delay is because, as we all know, every time The Dispatcher appears you have to first sit through a lengthy bravado introduction, his theme music (organ with a back-up chorus of the damned, obviously) and a brief pyrotechnic display before he delivers his evil proposition - which of course is to answer him or die - before he even tells the conductor the riddle? Wouldn't you then appreciate the time and care that's been taken to save your life? To save all our lives?? I should think so. 

DISPATCHER: Lazy artist rendition

If, every time the train is delayed, you imagine this battle of good versus evil, and every time the train starts moving again, you imagine has your life having been saved by a brave and quick-thinking conductor, you will have a new appreciation for arriving to work almost-on-time and the privilege of another day.

You're welcome.

P.S. - If there isn't already a death metal band called DISPATCHER (or, DZPTCHR) there should be.

P.P.S. - If you live in a different city with a major underground transit system, this may apply to you as well, but I wouldn't know nuthin' 'bout that.

Read more: http://www.blogdoctor.me/2007/02/expandable-post-summaries.html#ixzz1Ygp5vxLJ