The Rise and Fall of Skippy the Subway Russian

First. It's bloody cold. I hate when it's bloody cold, because it makes me type like I'm bloody english.

Anyhow . . .

Das Moofin needed paper for her class. Why she hadn't gotten it yet, I don't know. But since she needs to have this project done in 2 days, I have to go fetch it for her because now her schedule doesn't permit her to get it herself.

I am fighting off a cold, have an annoying chronic cough and am on the rag.

I am not the nicest person to be dealing with at the moment. You'd probably get more understanding and care from an ebola ridden gibbon monkey than me right now.

But, begrudgingly, I agree to go into the freezing rain and get her stupid paper.

If only I had known then the adventure that lay before me.

I get on the subway around 4ish. It's not really crowded but still full, I have a seat and that's all I care about.

At the Lex Avenue stop the crazy guy either gets on or starts to make himself known. For scientific purposes we shall refer to the crazy as "Skippy".

Skippy doesn't look like a homeless crazy. More like a "gee, someone took some bad drugs" kind of crazy. Relatively well dressed, big fro, and appears to be of some sort of mixed ethnicity. This becomes relevant in a second.

I don't know who he was talking to. I couldn't see all that well, and quite frankly when someone starts randomly yelling things your best bet is to avoid eye contact at all costs. But he yells out some random name and then starts going off on this mumbling rant that I couldn't understand at all.

By the 57th St. stop I start to get the impression that Skippy has some "ethnicity issues". Namely, he starts lecturing some asian people sitting near him that he's not a chink, and then something about his cousin, and then goes back to proclaiming very loudly that he is NOT a chink OR a nigger.

Yes I know what you're thinking, Skippy is obviously a very charming man.

Between 49th St. and Times Square things get really exciting. It's about this time that he starts yelling "I'm fucking Russian!! You know what that means?! I'M FUCKING RUSSIAN AND PROUD!!"

But who wouldn't be? If I were Russian, I'd be proud.

Okay not really. But I digress.

Skippy must have sensed that he was losing his audience, and wisely tried to instigate some crowd participation.

"If you're Russian put your fucking hands up!"

Shockingly, no one put their hands up.

It was at this point that Skippy must have realized his long sought career in show bussiness was sure to fail if he could not catch the attention of a mere group of subway patrons.

So, in a fit of obvious frustration at his inevitable failure, he started slamming his fist against the window as hard as he could. The rest of the subway patrons took this as their cue to get as far away from Skippy as humanly possible while the train was still in motion.

The whole incident ended with Skippy being hog tied (or "restrained") by the cops at the 34th St. stop.

So, in retrospect, I guess I don't have it so bad.

Now let's all have a moment of silence for Skippy the Subway Russian.