Hands on a Train: The less exciting sequel to Snakes on a Plane

I got on the wrong train today and am slightly off-kilter now. Mainly because I got into a verbal spat (and lost) with a middle-aged woman with a potty mouth. Plus, I’m actually off-kilter because after getting on the wrong train that took me to another city in New Jersey instead of the big city in New York, I got back on a different train that had, conservatively, ONE MILLION PEOPLE riding on the same little train car. And so I legitimately had to practice yoga contortion moves while avoiding a woman who INSISTED on still talking with her hands even though there was no room for hands, oh my god.

Also, she kept knocking me in the stomach with her wave-y hands and I kept pretending like it wasn’t bothering me because I figured she’d stop since you can feel yourself hitting my body, right? But then she didn’t and so then I became insane and started sweating and feeling light-headed and, upon the fifth time being struck by the hand-waver, I said “could you please be careful with your hands?”

Which is unlike me, but, come on. She and her train partner just looked at me and kept talking and THEN SHE HIT ME AGAIN AND I LOST MY MIND.

Me: “Excuse me, could you please watch where your hands go? You keep hitting me.”
Lady: “It’s a crowded train.”
Me: “Right, so maybe you could stop moving your hands so much?”
Lady: “Relax.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Lady: “Relax.”

I WILL NOT RELAX.

Me: “Please just don’t hit me, if at all possible.”
Lady, saying something in Spanish to her train partner.

Pause. Knocks my stomach again.

Me: “Seriously?”
Lady: “SERIOUSLY?”
Me: “Unreal.”
Lady: “Bitch.”
Random guy to lady: “You need to relax. And keep your hands to yourself.”
Me, to random guy: “Thank you!”

Then we arrived at my stop and the doors opened. And I needed this wave-y woman and her partner to please excuse me (exact words) so I could get through and off this terrible train.

Lady, nudging me as I passed by: “Pinche puta.”

And then the doors closed and I googled it and OH MY GOD, you guys.

We all need to relax.

But I felt vindicated as I walked up the platform stairs and a woman who had apparently been on the train with us said to me “I don’t know how you kept your sh*t together. I would’ve cut her hands off.”

Which, you know, sounds like a logical reaction to someone emoting too furiously with their hands on a crowded train.

Happy Monday from lovely New York City!