ScallionLove

The F train was an at absolute crawl this morning, stopping for 20 minutes between each station for several stations and packed to the gills with angry commuters. The most entertaining thing that happened was the homeless man with tourettes syndrome...for him I was profoundly grateful, even though he shoved me aside in an attempt to evade the "angry brothas" that were closing in on him. No one was chasing him, but I definitely understood the feeling of being trapped.

Anyway, when the train went above ground at 4th Ave. (in brooklyn), everyone whipped out their phones to call into work and say they were going to be late. There was a moment of pause after all the phones had been flipped open. Commuters looked around at one another...wondering...who would be first. Who would be the first to call in and say "Hey, (name), it's (name), i'm going to be late. Yeah we've been stuck here for.....DUHN DUHN DUHNNNNN....

How many minutes would he/she report? Of course, late trains are the perfect excuse for getting to work late. I (like many of my cohorts) was already late (for my 10 AM budget meeting) and fully intended on padding the amount of time i'd report being stuck under ground. Thought i'd add on an extra 10 or so minutes. But, packed into the subway like that, none of us wanted to be the first one to LIE in a 'room' full of about 100 people who would all know they were lying...

Finally, a finance-looking type took the first turn (i think he'd accepted the fact that we all already thought of him as an asshole) and reported that he'd been stuck, unmoving for 15 minutes. After he said "minutes" it was like the "all clear" sign had been waved and everyone else called in with rapid-fire dialing, reporting anything from a 15 to 20 minute delay (we'd probably been there about 7).

Fortunately, I know my boss does text messaging. So, I was able to text in my lateness (I ended up going with 20 minutes....sue me). But, I couldn't help but be entertained by the fact that in a city crowded with people busily scurrying to their high-powered, high-paying, high-fashion, high-stress, artsy fartsy, new age-y jobs, once the alpha male exhibited a behavior, the rest of the pack followed suit. Guess we're not as evolved as we'd like to think.