By Chris Cosci

Every weekday, along with roughly a billion other commuters, I experience the joy of riding the Long Island Rail Road. It beats sitting all morning in rush hour traffic on the ill-named Long Island Expressway, but not every day is perfect. Every once in a while, something goes wrong, and the commute does not go as planned. This only happens occasionally, say, once every other day.

The first problem is delays. Despite the Pentagon-sized budget they tell us they're spending on improvements, I haven't seen any improvement in service over the past few years. Delays range from ten minutes to well over an hour depending on the problem. The list of problems is endless - track problems, signal problems, track fires, disabled trains, rain, snow, etc. We have every delay possible just short of cattle crossing.

If the trains are running on time (you can usually tell by the pigs flying outside the window), then they'll sabotage the trip by sending trains with broken cars. There are different types of broken cars including cars with no heat in the winter, cars with no air in the summer, cars with leaks over the seats, and cars with missing and/or broken seats. If they can't find enough of these broken cars, they'll usually just shorten the train by removing two to four cars, eliminating at least 150 seats in the process. Standing on a packed train is always a lot of fun!

There are key phrases that you sometimes hear conductors say over the PA system that might make you feel uneasy. Phrases like, "Conductor, could you please recheck the doors in the rear of the train?" or "Engineer, please do a brake check." These phrases are usually followed by another worried-sounding conductor saying, "Conductor, please turn to channel four." Now, I'm pretty sure they're not watching television during the ride, so my guess is that channel four is their secret channel where they talk in private about what's really gone wrong.

Now, in case the trains are somehow running on time and with no technical problems, the Long Island Rail Road has hired people to play the part of insensitive clods who have no respect for the people around them. These people come in many varieties.

One variety is the foul-mouthed loud-talker. These are usually guys who come in groups of two or more and talk at full volume like they were twelve-year-olds who just learned dirty words and think it's cool to use them.

"Yeah - this [bad word] [bad word] at my office today was being such an [bad word]."

"Man, I hate [bad word] like that. They're so [bad word] annoying."

Another variety is the hard-of-hearing music-lover. These are the people who apparently have a hard time hearing the music coming out of the headphones that are directly over their ears despite the fact that other passengers four rows away can hear every note crystal clear.

Finally, there's the cell-phone-abuser. Usually, this person will take forever going through their attaché case looking for their phone which, instead of ringing, is playing the entire first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. When they answer it, they continue to have a full conversation at full volume with the person who's picking them up at the train station in five minutes.

One thing I can say is that every day brings new surprises. And tomorrow, I'll just open my daily package and see what's in store for me.