Hey – is it just me, or are a lot of people ending up dead or almost-dead on the subways these days? Three people were killed in two unrelated incidents over the weekend: early on Sunday morning, two men were stabbed to death on a 2-train in Manhattan over an errant bag of garbage that his the assailant in the head. Later that afternoon, a woman was killed by an N-train in Bensonhurst in what the police have deemed a suicide.
In order to combat this spike in dying on the NYC subways, I have prepared this handy guide of unsolicited advice.
5. Maybe you want to be dead, but we don’t want that! Plus death-by-subway is one of the oldest pleas for attention in the book, second only to death-by-tallest-building-in-the-city. No one is impressed, and I think you’ll find proving all the haters wrong by fighting through life’s struggles the hard way a lot more satisfying.
4. The MTA already has an Arts for Transit program, they don’t need your help. I still don’t have any sympathy for the 16-year-old graffiti vandal who had his leg severed by the N-train.
3. Do not go on the tracks. Ever. I don’t care what you drop on the tracks. Could be your phone. Could be your iPod. Could be your purse. I don’t freakin’ care. It’s not worth being dead. There’s only one reason you should ever ever ever go down to the tracks, and that’s to pick up another straphanger. Especially if she’s cute.
2. Don’t do anything stupid. More importantly, tell your friends not to do anything stupid. The victims in last weekend’s 2-train stabbing, by all media accounts, were trying to play peacemaker to the assailant and their dipshit friend that threw the bag filled with empty beer bottles in the first place. The fact that he hit a hot-tempered and armed crazy person is a little beside the point – that was just stupid, and now two people are dead.
1. Don’t antagonize crazy people. Don’t know which ones are crazy? Neither do I. So don’t antagonize anyone. Aside from being great Golden Rule advice, you might also be saving your life.
