All Aboard the Douchebag Express

Never before have the words "change at Jamaica" been so musical to my ears.

The Long Island Railroad is a mixed-blessing. On one hand, it serves as a quick and convenient mode of transportation for New York City outings eliminating the hassle of having to take your car and limiting your alcohol intake as a result. On the flip side, there are usually drunker, louder people coming home with you. I'm sure there's a graph somewhere outlining the "Post-Midnight Budweiser Theorum" that states for every quiet drunk who's only interested in passing out on the ride home, there's an oppositely obnoxious guy cracking the same bad joke loudly so that some commuter 30 rows down can pay him undeserved attention.

Watch the gap, mind the douche.

Last night, my girlfriend and I meet a couple of friends down in the Village to see a concert and pay way too much for cups of beer. We started drinking early and continued well into the evening when our feet were taking the brain's orders to walk straight as mere optional suggestions with room for improvisation. At around 12:30, my eyelids were losing the battle to gravity (I only had four hours sleep the previous night) and my sentences were so fragmented, you needed a flak jacket to have a conversation with me. The train was beginning to look more and more like my own personal Xanadu.

We always try our darndest to find the most sequestered part of the train, but loud douchebags have a super keen sense of smell and can pinpoint the passenger who'd be most bemused by their antics all the way from entrance of Madison Square Garden. That's when three drunken assholes decided to sit their typical Long Island girlfriends in the seats near us. At first I didn't think it was all bad considering one girl's breasts were a sneeze away from popping out. But then, as libations dictate, the guys have to impress their women by being the self-appointed train comedian. I wanted to just let the alcohol quietly run its course, not attend some "open mike" performance.

I probably wouldn't be writing this now if these guys were halfway entertaining (or if barely-covered-boobs girl sneezed). But the whole discussion between the ladies and the douchebags consisted of arguing over the name of the burger joint where the one girl worked. The eatery in question was named after a classic Belushi sketch from early Saturday Night Live. If you know what I'm talking about, you'd know the name would be intentionally misspelled to emulate the accent used by late Not-Ready-For-Primetime Player in the aforementioned bit. Not surprisingly, irony was lost on the most vocal of the Douchebag Trio and arguing the supposed proper spelling and pronunciation of the restaurant's name suddenly became his shtick. The pointless and cacophonous bantering went on for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, another girl was taking pictures of the whole exchange (and probably me with my eyes half-closed) because nothing screams "I have no personality" more than showing people pictures of your friends talking loudly on a commuter train.

What makes me the quintessential drunk is that, even at my most inebriated, I can think rationally. I'm still fully aware of the consequences of any and all of my actions. I'll still dance like an idiot on occasion, but I probably won't ever wake up in a holding cell trying to piece together the blood stains on my shirt. Last night, though, the rational part of my brain had to work overtime. I was trying to figure out the best way to get the assholes to stop hovering and screaming over our seats that would lead to minimal retaliation. I really, really wanted to punch one of them. Nothing fancy, just a quick cock to the bridge of his nose. Sadly, life is not an Adam Sandler movie where someone just slinks away after being shut-up with the business end of a duke. So I started thinking of angry, but non-violent solutions. I wanted to stand up and scream, "The bimbo is right! It's call what it is and why are you even arguing? She may have a limited vocabulary due to overexposure to MTV reality shows but I think she knows the name of the place she works you big old bag of douche!" Again, the way it played out in my head did not end well. Ultimately, outside the "I'm want stab this dude with the promotional Onion pen" comments my girlfriend made, we just had to sit and bear their asinine conversations and flash bulbs until the train pulled into the Jamaica station. We jumped off that car like it was seconds away from blowing up and made a mad dash for the sanctuary of the nice, quiet train to Long Beach. It was great. No talking, just quiet detoxing.

I awoke this morning with the feeling of extreme fatigue. Coffee took care of that. But as I sip my Sanka, I'm left wondering about the mornings of the loud, annoying asses that made half our train ride one big fingernail down that proverbial chalkboard. Are they shaking their head remorseful for their drunken cries for attention? Are they looking at the photos referring to themselves as "extremely awesome" in some deluded fashion? Actually, I don't really care so long as I'm in a different zip code from them.