It was the oddest thing. There, on my commute home the other day, was a woman on the train. Standing. Lunch bag in hand. Purse over the shoulder. Apparently fast asleep.
“Wow,” I said to the passenger sitting next to me. “How does she not fall over?”
The passenger next to me didn’t reply, so I turned to look at her. She was also asleep. And snoring.
As I say, it’s the oddest thing. I mean, I get it why the going-home crowd is tired. Heaven knows, they’ve been pushing paper all day, and answering phones, and sorting through a ga-zillion files.
But I can’t sleep on the long ride home. Heck, I can’t sleep on a plane, even when the lights have been dimmed and I’ve had two martinis.
Yet, on the way home, the train — and even more so, the bus — is filled with snoozing people. Seems that, increasingly, they’re not so much a means of transportation as they are moving bedrooms.
There have been occasions, I must say, when I’ve wanted to suggest to these passengers they might consider tucking in a little earlier at night, but there’s never an opportunity, given they are, well, usually sleeping.
I’ve also wanted to suggest they might want to increase the comfort quotient of their slumber by bringing along, oh, a little pillow in their backpacks, and perhaps a small teddy bear and a pair of fuzzy slippers.
But maybe that’s none of my business.
There is, after all, generally never anything comfortable looking about the way they nod off. If they’re not standing — and truly, that’s a remarkable feat — their heads tend to be pressed against a cold window, or worse, bobbing in the direction of someone else’s shoulder.
Don’t much care for that when it’s mine.
I know I can’t know this for sure, but it also seems to me the number of sleeping commuters is on the rise. At one time, there may have been just one or two people on my typical commute who may have been off in dreamland — or shockingly, none at all.
Today, I swear I’m in the minority. Today, by golly, three-quarters of the folks on my bus are either headed to sleep or deep into the REM. I rather feel like I’m at a day care during nap time.
Where this is going, I have no idea. But eventually, I’m betting I may be one of only two people who remain wide awake during the drive-home commute.
Won’t really mind that one little bit — so long as the other person’s the driver.
