Dear F Train...

photo: venusinfurs.net

Ok, so we got a heartfelt letter from FIPS reader Meredith yesterday regarding the fact that her hatred for the F train has reached the "fire of a thousand hot burning suns" level. In Meredith's defense, she had not yet heard that the reason the F was so fucked yesterday, was because a guy had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at the 7th Ave stop in Park Slope--which was horrible, and tragic. She's not a heartless, NYC asshole...she just didn't have the facts. Though, if you get right down to it, NO ONE on any fucking subway ANYWHERE ever has the facts because:

• Subway conductors never give you real information. They say shit like: "due to an earlier incident..." Well, ya know what? If you gave us some real fucking scoop, maybe we'd stop bitching. I get that you don't want to announce that some dude just jumped to his death over the loud speaker, but it would certainly help alleviate the bitch factor quite a bit ("due to an earlier tragedy...?"). Cause when I hear "earlier incident," I just assume that that means some conductor was jerking off in his little control room area and his giz got all over the subway driver stick thingy and now the train needs to be towed back to wherever the fuck you keep them cause its driving all cockeyed (pun intended). Or that the stupid doors just won't close properly. "Stop being polite and start getting real" MTA.

• You can't hear a fucking thing anyone is saying....EVER. THE ONLY TIMES that you can ever hear anything over those janky ass loud speakers, is on trains where that pre-recorded lady voice makes the announcements OR if you happen to be on the Q train in the morn when that one rad dude who's super cheery and likes to enunciate all his words is driving. He says "good morning!" a lot and kinda sounds like he should have his own radio show. Other than that, good fucking luck.

• You need a PhD in statistial analysis to read ANY of the motherfucking signs the MTA busts out with that talk about route changes. I received a full academic scholarship to college and I think like once, 4 years ago, there was a sign I read that I *kinda* understood--other than that, they all look like this to me.

So, yeah. While we, by no means, wish to make light of what happened yesterday, the truth is that these sorts of subway delays happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME. And 9.9 times out of 10 it's not because someone jumped to their death. So we're including Meredith's note here today because the F (and G!) trains have proven themselves to be the subway clusterfuck of the century time and time again.

Hey Erica,

The F train has been turning my life into a living fucking hell lately.  This morning was the last straw.  Please find below an open letter to the F train as I take turns pulling out clumps of my hair and typing:

F Train, we're not speaking right now.  No, I know you don't care.  If you did, I wouldn't be telling you to fuck off.  But we have, and you've just unseated screaming babies from the top of my hit list.

In the beginning, I defended you.  "Why?" asked my friends, smugly living off of express lines, "Why would you live off the F?"  But I laughed it off, smiled, and simply stated that you, F train, brought me exactly where I needed to go.  Sure, there were guaranteed transfers involved.  And no direct route into Atlantic-Pacific or Union Square.  It was okay, F train - you did it for me like an unmarried man walking down Seventh Avenue does.

I excused your hiccups.  Slow service here, a track diversion there (because honestly, who really uses those stations between Jay Street and West Fourth, besides the thousands of people who live off of them or everyone who wants to leave the borough on a Friday night?).  But then Subway Hell Weekend happened.  And for the other eighteen lines affected, it was one weekend of shitty service.  Almost like a camping trip, a wild foray into nostalgia New York where people like, walked everywhere.  A fantastic excuse to crash at a friend's, or have a hey-hey-hey night with a baller you met an hour prior at that shitty Prospect Park West bar you told yourself you'd step foot in.  However, your Subway Hell Weekend turned into a Subway Hell Six Weeks.  F train, I do not like anything resembling camping, nor being hit on at Farrell's, and I do not like being told "tough shit, here's a shuttle bus" ever.  I don't live off the L for a reason.

And then this morning, I wake up in a fairly decent mood, do my normal breeder-weaving up Windsor, only to be told that you're not running.  At all.  Because obviously no one needs Manhattan-bound train service at 8:10 on a Thursday morning.  You have officially turned into an unmarried man on Seventh Avenue: non-fucking-existent.

F train, you are no better to me than the G at this point.  And I know you ultimately win since that's the other line I live off of.  Well, fuck you both.  But please, please be there when I get off of work tonight.

This is war...kind of. 

Sigh.  And happy birthday FIPS.

Hope you didn't have to take the F today,

Meredith