Dear Diary:
I recently got on the C train at 59th Street headed downtown, not realizing that I was stepping into an alternate universe.
The train was crowded at rush hour, and I failed to notice that there was a clearing around a man standing in the middle of the car. He was carrying a saxophone and wearing pink fuzzy Martian antennas. As soon as the doors closed, he brought the sax to his lips and began a screeching and caterwauling the likes of which I had never heard.
People began to scramble for an escape, to no avail. They slammed their hands over their ears and cowered as far away as possible, myself included.
This went on for a few torturous seconds, and then he mercifully paused, and said in an almost reasonable tone, “Give me money and I will stop.â€
As he looked around expectantly, I saw another man across from me, with the same horrified expression as everyone else, dig frantically into his pocket and triumphantly come up with a set of keys. “Here, I’ll give you the keys to my condo if you just stop now,†he said loudly.
After a moment, our least favorite Martian respectfully tipped his pink antennas to our hero and moved on to the next car.
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