And you thought you had a bad day...

Two snippets of other people's lives...

David, regular guy David, on track David, having the good life David, got out of bed Thursday, showered, dressed and headed for the kitchen for a little coffee. He got as far as the bedroom door. It was stuck. He turned the handle and yanked. Stuck. Would not budge. He turned the handle the other way. Still stuck. A combination of new paint and the recent rains had glued the door shut. David took a deep breath. His girlfriend was still asleep. A foot on the door frame and the full leaning back while holding your breath didn't work. Pushing in while lifting up didn't work. Lurching and yanking while muttering threats regarding the painter's closest relatives didn't work. At last, trying to find a way to get the door open and be quiet proved impossible and the girlfriend drowsed awake only to ask embarrassing questions. Ah yes, start your day with the love of your life, or this month anyway, wondering aloud what is so wrong with you that you can't open a door?

She couldn't either. Luckily. That would have really done it.

So they did what modern people do. They called the doorman. Except David's phone was in the living room so they used hers except that she didn't have the number so they had to wait until a decent hour to call her girlfriend who had the number who then would call the doorman. "I'm not calling before eight." Oh, right. I thought we had kind of an emergency.

More futile yanking enthused.

Final act: Doorman called, he arrives, no key, drills out front door lock and puts shoulder to bedroom door to bust it open with only minor structural damage.

David goes to work only three and half hours late.

Fate of relationship still unreported.
=========================================

Also late, but on Friday morning was Joe , another regular guy filled with dread over the dental appointment he was late for, he stood on the platform and prayed for something to happen or not happen. What happened was a fire in a switching room several miles away, but not until Joe got onto the train. It was between 155th and 145th Streets that the train stopped. In accordance with MTA policy, or at least conduct, no announcement regarding the stoppage was made for approximately five minutes, then there was the official, completely unintelligible, squawking --something about delay, moving smortkedly soon- then nothing for the next ten minutes. Another apology, no news, so that's good news, but no movement.

Joe read the paper. He read the editorials and nodded. He read the Metro section, Bloomberg still crushing Ferrer in the mayor's race. He read the International section, the National Section, he browsed the Arts and Leisure. He wished he had a pen so he could do the crossword. He tried doing it in his head. The Friday NYTimes Crossword is tough to do with a pen and about impossible to do without, but he tried. More minutes passed. He read through the whole front page again, this time reading the article (Part II) about the lack of ice at the North Pole and he read the Religion article about making a life after living through the massacres in all the various places of massacre around the globe. Apparently, someone had done it.

He got out his cellphone, useless deep underground except it would give him the time of day which was more the MTA was doing. One hour and twenty minutes had passed since he got on the train, an hour and ten minutes of that had been spent here looking out at the murk and the bricks in the tunnel.

Without a word, the train moved slowly southward and pulled into the 145th Street Station. The platform was filled of people, faces tight with anger, despair and resignation. Joe got off thinking he would just walk the forty blocks back to the apartment. Announcements were being made. No trains were running North or South, they hoped to be moving soon. The volume of the speakers was set at just below ear-piercing making the message all that more painful. Joe headed for the stairs and the long walk home. He called his dentist's office from the top of the stairs near the booth entrances. One bar on the cellphone, just enough. Sorry, have to cancel, stuck uptown, reschedule, okay, sorry.

A great weight lifted from him and then, like a final gift from the gods, he heard a northbound train coming into the station below. He dashed down the stairs and got on.

And there is more.

On the seat was a pen. He opened his paper and furiously started to fill in the crossword while the train carried him toward home.