Oh, To Ride the Subway Again

Without pants…

What says New Relationship more clearly than riding the subway wearing no pants in early January?

There we were in our undies, boarding the train nonchalantly along with thousands of other pants-less people in New York and 48 other cities in 22 countries on January 9, 2011. It was the tenth anniversary of the No Pants Subway Ride, introduced by Improv Everywhere, a New York-based comedy collective that’s been creating public spectacles since 2001.

It was 24 degrees out that day.

The idea was that hundreds of people got together in six different places around the city and then spread out to take trains on all the subway lines (except the G which doesn’t leave Brooklyn) to Union Square in Manhattan. Without our pants. We were instructed to behave totally normally and if anyone asked us why we were riding the subway without our pants, we were to act surprised to find ourselves pants-less.

Watching people’s reactions as more and more pants-less people boarded each subway car was hilarious. This is New York, so a fair number of people glanced up and then went back to whatever they were doing. However, there were still plenty of flabbergasted people just staring with their mouths open. Smartphones weren’t as prevalent in 2011 as they are today, but anyone who had one was busily taking videos.

Kids were the best. They just could not wrap their heads around the idea that all these people were on the subway in the middle of winter without their pants!

Good times.

For us, it was a checkmark item. As the years passed we weren’t called to take our pants off and ride the subway on bitter cold days in January. Then, as global climate change began to eliminate winter so that we could pretty much count on 40-degree weather throughout, the shock value of seeing hundreds of people riding the subway without their pants diminished. Plus, as an annual event, people are no longer taken by surprise.

Oh, it’s those nuts riding the train without their pants again. Where did you say you wanted to go for dinner?

But wouldn’t it be so great to get to do that now?

Ok, right, it’s April and today it’s (what else?) 40 degrees and a little gloomy. Not exactly ideal No Pants Subway Ride weather. And, of course, if hundreds of us showed up to take off our pants and get on the trains we’d damned well better be wearing our masks and make sure everyone has plenty of hand sanitizer.

I miss the subway.

There’s nothing anywhere else in the world like the New York City subway. The things you’ll see there on any given day are things that just don’t happen anywhere else.

Yes, it’s sometimes filthy and stinky. Yes, it’s insanely crowded, or was, and there are often delays. And, yes, too many of the other riders are clearly not housebroken (put your shoes back on, please!). But it usually gets you where you need to go quickly and often provides you with an entertaining story to tell when you get there.

It also provides an unparalleled opportunity to read.

When I was working down in the financial district, I’d get on the train up here in Harlem where I’d be more likely to get a seat thank you very much and then dive into my book. Rush hour subways are no joke. As more and more people crushed onto the car, I would be lost in my book until we’d get to my stop. I was reading “Devil in the White City” then and on the day I finished it, I left it in the Fulton Street station for the next lucky reader.

We’ll know that the virus has left town for good when we can squish ourselves together on the 2 train every morning and go to work.

Me, I’m not entirely confident that day will happen any time soon. We may be at the white-hot epicenter of this monster but at least (so far) we seem to have a governor who’s putting our lives ahead of the interests of all those foaming-at-the-mouth capitalists railing to get this country opened back up, dammit! If I lived in other states where the governors are considering reopening businesses, I’d really be laying in the provisions and planning on going into deep isolation for the foreseeable future.

It’s tragic that we live in a time and place where people won’t get the message until they get spanked good and hard and repeatedly. At what point will the captains of industry realize that dead people can’t work for them nor buy their goods and services?

So I’m staying put. Much as I want to be out and about, I’m staying in. I’m exquisitely aware of my privileged position that allows me to do so. Me going out to do more than buy groceries, however, won’t benefit any of my neighbors who aren’t as privileged. I’ll wear my mask, wash my hands, cheer with the others at 7 o’clock each evening and look forward to the day I can cram myself onto a stinky, overcrowded subway with my book.

But rest assured I’ll be wearing pants.

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