Strange men on trains

After leaving London, I really had no time to blog. I was going back and forth between Ohio and New York, trying to find a place to live, getting acclimated to my new job, etc., I was absolutely exhausted! Between apartment viewings and eating cheese doodles on the go, blogging was at the very bottom of my to-do list. But thanks to a middle aged man by the name of Keith, Ms. Stasia is back!

Yesterday I was at Penn Station heading home from work. I was only 10 hours into my new lifestyle change (a.k.a. The South Beach Diet) but I had a rough day so I decided to visit old faithful for a little pick me up. Just as the train was approaching, a very handsome man stood next to me and said “absolutely gorgeous!” As we both stepped onto the train I asked him, “are you referring to me, or the donut?” I’m a little leery about talking to strangers, because I’ve found that the majority of people are either weird or unappealing, but he looked normal so I decided to give him a chance and engage in conversation.

“I was referring to you,” he said. He sat next to me and we proceeded with the usual ‘get to know ya’ chat; what’s your name, what do you do, do you live in the city, yada, yada, yada. He asked for my number and it’s usually my policy to take numbers, not give numbers, but he seemed normal and I’m all about making new friends since I’m in a new city so I agreed. He talked about possibly getting together over the weekend and he asked what type of things I like to do. He said he was pretty much open to anything, except going to the movies. He went on a rant about how movies are horrible these days and the last really good movie he saw was A Few Good Men.

“A Few Good Men? I said. “That movie is over 10 years old. How old are you?”

“I’m a business man. I’m good at what I do, but I’m socially inept.” he said.

“Um, what?” I was thoroughly confused. What exactly did that have to with what we were talking about?

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines…’ he continued. And continued.

Yes, he continued for 5 minutes, or exactly 3 stops on the A train. Keith recited the entire court room scene from A Few Good Men. And not just Jack Nicholson’s character, but Tom Cruise too and whoever the guy was that played the judge. This man was obviously abnormal.

“Hmmm,” I said. “Exactly how many times have you seen that movie?”

“Only three. But I have a strong propensity to memorize long passages and recite them verbatim,” he said. “You know what else I like? Pens. I love pens!”

He proceeded to pull four pens out of his jacket pocket and a Target bag full of new packs of pens from his briefcase. He held a pen dangerously close to my face and said, “I looked everywhere for this pen. My friend had one so I had to get one. This is a high quality, exclusive pen,” he said.

Now if it were a Montblanc or Caran d’Ache pen, I could possibly understand his excitement; those are really nice pens after all. But this dude was holding up a Bic. A bic! I think I got my first bic when I my third grade teacher allowed us to complete our assignments in pen instead of pencil. Hardly exclusive, or of the highest quality for that matter.

“You see this pen here? It has a 1.2 millimeter ball, which means it has a broad stroke,” he said.

At this point, I was speechless. I was just giving him the crazy look and hoping that he would stop talking. Or at least get off at the very next stop.

“You probably wish you didn’t give me your number, don’t you?” he said. “I told you, I’m a really good guy, but I’m a little socially inept. I think it stems from me not having friends as a child. My parents took me to a child psychologist to see what was wrong with me. I sit outside coffee shops alone sometimes and…”

“Um, excuse me” I interrupted. “Do you always tell perfect strangers stuff like this? Actually, don’t even answer that. Just don’t talk. I’m not much of a talker,” I said.

“Really?” he said. “Do you like coffee? There is nothing in this world that I love more than coffee! Did you know that the world’s entire economic system was built on the coffee trade? Do you want me to tell you about it?”

It was then that I realized that this man wasn’t having a conversation with me, he was actually having a perfectly good conversation with himself. I was merely a decoy so that the other people on the train didn’t think he was crazy as hell. How else can you explain it? He was jumping from subject to subject like some ADHDish 10 year-old, reciting paragraph after paragraph from an old ass movie, and having his own show and tell with his “exclusive” $4 pack of pens, and during all of this nonsense I probably spoke once or twice. I’ve condensed this story heavily because I was on the train with this whack job for a good 27 minutes before I got off at some random stop just to get away from him. And through it all, I never said much of anything. With one exception: before I got off the train, I asked if I could have my number back. I didn’t feel too bad about it because as his ridiculous monologue went on and on, he asked me a number of times if I wanted my number back and if I regretted talking to him in the first place. So I wasn’t being a total bitch, I was just taking him up on his offer! But considering he has the “propensity to memorize long passages and site them verbatim,” he probably has my number memorized and will call me anyway. Something tells me that I haven’t heard the last of Keith…