Bad Commute, Good Deed

Well, I've been very lucky of late in that my commute to work hasn't been stressful or long. All that changed this morning. Due to the flooding rains, I had the commute from hell this morning. First, taking the bus to my train station was an adventure in itself. What is normally a ten to fifteen minute ride took almost a half hour (which is okay. Better to be safe). So, after my son and I get to the train, we find out that because of flooding at the WTC stop (my stop for work), there are no trains running in that direction.

For those who are not familiar with the PATH line, there are only two main ones. One runs from Newark, NJ to the World Trade Center in New York and the other runs from Hoboken in NJ to 33rd Street in NY. So, all of the trains were running along the 33rd street line. Good idea, right? UH, NO! Too much power being used at one time cause an outage. So, I had lots of company while we were stuck underground on the train 1/4 mile from the Christopher Street train stop in New York. No air, no noise, nothing. Needless to say, after about 30 minutes, people were anxious, hot and irritable. I kept my calm because I've learned that there's nothing you can do about things that you have not control over.

However, all things happen for a reason. There was a lady standing near me who looked as if she were about to faint. Another woman who was sitting nearby gave up her seat so the lady could sit down. My son had a bottle of water so I asked him to give some to her (which seemed to help along with air and the train finally moving). As it turned out, both ladies are from Plainfield, NJ (shout out to Stephanie and Nicky) and didn't know an alternate route to get to lower Manhattan. So, I told them that we were headed in that direction so they could travel along with us.

They were both grateful to me and my son for showing them another way to work so what began as a not so good commute turned into a good deed for the day!