If you are commuting into New York City on a daily basis, you are usually coming in from Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, Long Island, Connecticut, New York State or New Jersey. You can also lay claim to be living and working in the most densely populated region of the United States. You can also lay claim to be living and working in a area that is home to more chemical companies than any other region in the United States. And if you live in New Jersey, you are a trend setter.
The Garden State has 108 toxic waste dumps which is more in any one state in the nation and it has 116 superfund sites, again leading the United States. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!!!
New Jersey, you chemical dumping Olympian you.
Now, why do I mention all of this fluffy talk about paper mill detergents beneath your rose bushes and discarded adhesive residue rivers flowing through the Garden State. Well, it is my hunch... a simple belief based on no scientific evidence or fact, that all of the mutants and unhinged chuckleheads that that ride on my train, have been affected by the trickling mist of tetrachloroethane into their coffee water. It is the only explanation for some of the things I see and hear on my commute. These boobs have to be getting their apples from an acrylamide orchard somewhere on the outskirts of Newark, NJ.
Now, before I attempt to make the connection between the defective genetic recombination of my fellow train riders, and their contaminated strawberry pop tarts and toxic mocha lattes, I would be remiss to not say that there are very beautiful places all over the state of New Jersey. My backyard is full of deer, foxes, coyotes and birds of all species. The air is clean and the well water does not promote the growth of antlers in humans. I know, because my 13 year old has been antler free since 1995 and my 9 year old has yet to show signs of horns. The smoke stacks, chemical pipelines, refineries and storage tanks are pretty much located within a 10-15 mile radius of New York City. Beyond that range, you rarely have to wear a Type F Tyvek suit to get the morning paper or when you take the kiddies to school. But I digress...A recent observation on the 5:39pm train out Hoboken gave me pause to believe that my theory may be spot on. I was sitting in a three seater and directly across from me was a gentleman in his mid 50's. There was nothing too alarming about him. He wasn't wearing Gene Simmons face paint or cutting his name into his arm. He seemed... normal. However, he was "reading" Hustler magazine. He was reading it proudly and openly. I have to give the old guy credit. He was marching to his own beat. There he was, sitting on a train that was packed to the gills with commuters, flipping through the pages of one of Larry Flynt's finest contributions to 'pop up' literature.
He appeared to be handling the pages as if he were tasting a glass of 1982 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, he slowly kept turning the magazine... upside down, sideways, clockwise, counter clockwise. Was he looking at the magazine for clarity, color and opacity. Did the content of December's Hustler Honey fold out contain residual sugars. Was she acidic? What were her tannin levels? Was she fruity, buttery or oaky and did she finish cleanly? It looked like he was trying to make the pages come alive. At one point, he actually tilted the magazine back and forth like a steering wheel, as if he was trying to get his one dimensional dream date to dance of off the page and into his lap. All Aboard!
At the end of the day, what kind of person whips out a girly mag, on a rush hour train and without reservation, flips, flutters and twiddles through the pages? I have an answer to that. It's someone whose penne with vodka sauce has been tainted with dimethyl sulfate and flourine .Food for thought... Next time you and your buddies decide to grab a drink of water after a pick up basketball game down at the Acme Chemical Plant in Hackensack, NJ, make sure you know the difference between a garden hose and Hypochlorite overflow pipe. I need to start a car pool.
