Nothing like ending the year with a string of random strange events

I've been sick for the past few days. I really hate being sick, moreover, I hate being sick and still having to go into work. I sit during my incubation periods with no desire to take advantage of the quietness of the lab and read scientific papers. Instead I have exhausted every link on the People Magazine site.

So I was expecting a slow boring day (especially since I finished reading my book and I know the contents of People by heart) and hoped to leave early to buy the necessary items for our New Year's Midnight Fun Run costumes. But already this day has been anything but boring.

This morning I took the subway to work. (Yeah yeah, I know, I work a little over a mile away. But I'm sick and it was raining.) I'm running down the stairs to the platform and there is a woman standing in front of me, TERRIFIED. I mean she was having a panic attack. It turns out that there is a rat on the platform, fairly large one too. She is so frightened that she can't move. So being the good Samaritan that I am (and having no fear of rodents), I offered to scare the rat away. I get to the bottom of the stairs and the rat is milling around about 3 feet away. I stomp my foot at it to scare it and it hisses at me. HISSES! It was more of a screech/hiss, but really! What an obstinate rat! So I kick at it (more like flailing my leg at it) and it moves a bit and hisses again. Finally, I open my automatic umbrella at it and it freaks out and runs off the platform and down the tracks.

I get on the train and it's an empty car. There is a homeless man who comes through the car and sits next to me. Very closely. I get up and move. He follows. We are now at 175th street. He yells at me, calling me mean names including f-ing china, my personal favorite. I get off at the next stop and he gets off, and continues to heckle me until...Dum Dum Dum...I see a cop and report this nuisance. The cop sees the man following me, yelling at me and tells the guy to chill. He is no longer my problem. I did enjoy hearing as I walked away the man yell, "Pig, PIG!"

I get into the hospital elevator and a woman pushing another woman in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank gets in. The pusher says to the patient, "I know you hate elevators, but we are almost there." This is a lie. We are at the lobby and she is going to the 14th floor (I get off at 15) and the elevator is excruciatingly slow. It turns out the patient not only has an elevator phobia, but is also severely claustrophobic. Now, I am a small person. I don't take up much space, but somehow this patient decides I am too big and that my bag is causing her to feel claustrophobic. She hits, HITS, my bag and tells her pusher that I am a rude girl and making her have difficulty breathing. She tells me to move. Move where? All I want to tell this lady during this fairly short elevator ride, is that she has a mental problem. GET OVER IT LADY! It's all in your head! is what I feel like yelling at her and I envision myself in that split moment punching her in the face.

Of course I don't. I instead tell her how sorry I am that she feels that I am encroaching on her space and that she will be out of here soon enough, that is if the elevator doesn't get stuck. I said this knowing that we were about to hit 14. I see the look on her face, a look of horror, and then we open at 14 and this crotchety lady and her pusher get out.

What a day. And it's only 1:30.