The Zombiepocalypse Was Upon Me At Penn Station

I was lucky to make it out alive.

It was early morning this past Saturday, way too early for a Saturday. The part of the morning one is normally entitled to sleep through. I was up, hat on head, bag on shoulder, waiting for my LIRR track assignment and to head east for the day. A quarter past six and I was glad to have gotten there in the first place after Friday’s steinhoist.

The fallen were all over. Straight ahead, one ravaged soul in a green buttondown lay fully on his back, arms straight back over his head, knees up. His sunglasses, with no more purpose, lay without meaning to his left. To my right, a young man with shoulder-length hair and a weak beard conserved his last scrap of energy leaning against one of the poles. His girlfriend, still reasonable, shouted unheard instructions. None of the ill could speak.

Two policemen were there. They raised, or roused, these afflicted, but only temporarily. A sharp smack on the knee from a cop got them to their feet, but only long enough to shuffle away to find some other resting place, out of eyesight.

A pair of Asian youths ushered each other by. One was laughing like a salesman, insane without instant cure from the effects of the evening.

These poor creatures were doomed to stumble around this Purgatory, deprived of their only necessity, sleep.

I, on the other hand, having rested, needed no more than a donut to pass the short time before my train arrived.

I walked over to the concourse – succeeding in not tripping over anyone – to the Dunkin’ Donuts where I’d picked up many cups of coffee and tea and pairs of donuts over the last decade.

A giant piece of paper failed to completely cover the abscess.

It was no more. The cases, the machinery, the counter. The sign. All gone, leaving only the dark residue of their memory caked into the grout.

The Starbucks several doors down was still there. May or may not have been open. Didn’t check. Mouth too agape at the vacancy before me.

It made no sense that they’d take out a brilliant little store, a half-store sharing a bedroom with its sibling. I felt the pang of loss. I was no longer a mainstay at any DD franchise but the Penn Station outpost was always ideal for getting me through the next hour plus until I got wherever I was going, which hopefully, invariably had a stockpile of better, heartier food.

I wondered all day, not upset but curious. What had happened? I planned to be at that concourse again, eventually, and would get my answer when I got it.

Monday morning, I got it.

I could only presume that the truth lay in the latest charge of the Canadian invasion. Tim Horton’s:

If I wanted some Dunkin’ Donuts that morning, imagine how all those fucking drunk people felt.

Added to Posts on 07/14/09 | Comment » | Tags: , , ,  | Email This | Print This |

Does America Run On Dunkin? (And If So, Must It?)

A third subtitle of this column could be “Day Thirteen of the Second Great Caffeine Give-Up.”

The first Great Caffeine Give-Up happened last October.  I had been in a holding pattern for some time before that, having lived in an apartment I didn’t like in an area that didn’t feel like home for two years, and was soon moving back to Manhattan, where I’m grateful ever to have lived, let alone on two non-consecutive leases.  Professionals suggest not making larger life changes simultaneously – don’t get married, switch jobs, move, grow a beard, and go vegetarian all at once (though Mr. McCartney pulled it off, and admirably) – but though I am no Paul McCartney, I rode the wave of change and while settling in to my new zip code I wondered what other areas of my life could be unnaturally altered.

It’s true, I could have started exercising regularly, volunteering weekly, even written on a consistent basis, but I chose to throw my efforts in shaking one of my last standing chemical addictions, Caffeine.

I’d had it with waking up a groggy mess, somnambulating onto the subway, not reading for that time, not fully entering the world of the conscious until around 10am when I had that great Keurig cup of coffee, the first of several for that day, each having built into the best and most important cup of coffee I’d ever had in my life.

Something had to give.

So, coffee was it.  Out.  I’d minimized my soda intake for other colorful reasons but coffee would be on the altar.

It worked.  For a couple of weeks.  I weaned myself back onto tea embarassingly quickly.  It was in Jamaica Plain, MA that I was out to Sunday breakfast and ordered a tea with my omelette.  The waitress made her rounds and filled my empty cup  with coffee, and I heard an echo from the center of the universe resound, “This one’s on me.”  So I had it.  Last cup of coffee I’ve had.  November 2008.

The tea continued for another six months, until two weeks ago when it was time to be gone again.

The ultimate source of this life change, take two, is no more nor less the Dunkin Donuts slogan, “America Runs on Dunkin.”

The tumblers aligned and I thought this was a particularly dangerous thing.  That I tried to give it up and failed, but have so far succeeded again, convinces me just how deeply embedded in daily consciousness is the intake of caffeine.

I’m young enough to think this kind of experimentation matters, not ready to pour my energy into more worthwhile pursuits.  But in the meantime, I’m doing my best to convince myself that the energy I need to do whatever that something is, isn’t necessarily to be found at the bottom of a cup of coffee, let alone one every few hours, every day.  The glib answer would now be, “You’re right, it’s to be found in a caffeine pill.”

The answer I’m going with is that the energy can come from within.  America needn’t run on Dunkin – we have other fossil fuels, in much shorter supply, to power us.  But individually, I’ve got to tap into this source of energy that until now has written my essays and fought my battles but hasn’t gotten me out of bed in the morning.  I need to wake up with the enthusiasm of Christmas morning.  I’d rather my mind need deceleration than speeding up.  I need to wake myself up.

Added to Posts on 04/30/09 | Comment » | Tags:  | Email This | Print This |