i hate people who ride the 1 train

today i was coming home from work, nodding off like i do as soon as i board a train. best way to travel, unless there's more than 4 people in your car. ...and at 7pm on a tuesday, the 1 train will always be packed, come hell, high water, chemical attack, or zombie apocalypse.

so i'm on the train, nodding off and dreaming of whippets and sugar plumbs, when this girl about my age gets on. she gets on, and her three bouncing brats bound in after her. family of ducks. and i always want to run over ducks. why?--they are assholes. squawk like they're being strangled, then they shit on your yard. even after you feed them Wonder bread and think you've bought their respect--nope, they'll just shit wet, starchy logs all over your front walk. assholes.

these children were baby ducks. and mommy'd just stuffed 'em full o' wonder. "ma! maaaaa! ma Kelly's touching me! ma!" train car's packed to capacity and all "ma" can do is honk back at her little starch gobblers. "knock it off, Lucy. i'm not trying to have it."

"maaaaa! Stephanie's pulling my hair!"

"ma! Kelly won't stop TOUCHING me!"

mother goose honks and honks and the baby geese honk back louder. it's a god damned circus.

i'm in and out of consciousness, this time dreaming snippets of stalking through the woods with a bell-muzzle musket and Elmer Fud in his hunting cap. "shhhhh. it's duck season."

40 minutes of hell.

have i mentioned the 1 train is also called the Red Line? if there is a hell, it exists in the fiery, cramped, sweaty bowls of the 1 train at rush hour. it's an oven of filth and misery, and it's baking us all into a wretched, wretched loaf. (i'll grind your bones to make my bread.") except for the ducks. in hell, ducks don't cook up crispy-sweet. they just get shrieky-puffy, more obnoxious. and bigger, somehow.

but then it all ends in a wave of cold, wet salvation. parting of the red sea. Andre the Giant shoves Indigo's face into the water barrel to break his drunken fever dream.

"maaaaa! ma!"

"that's it, Lucy. when we get home, we're going to give your new kitten to one of the neighbors. i can't take this anymore."

"whaaaat?"

"if you can't listen to me, you don't deserve a kitten."

the ducks stop squawking and Lucy stares for a second. then--

"whaaaaaaaaaaaa! waaaaaaa! no, mommy, no! waaaaa!"

then Kelly and Stephanie, just like little duck fucks: "WAAAAAAA!"

totally worth it. plus, my stop was next. freebie!

Bob Barker, play me out, babe: "have your pets spayed or neutered. [especially the geese.]"