This morning was something of a mess, at least in the public works department. This morning, in a hurry after hitting the snooze instead of popping up to go to the gym (because what morning do I ever pop out of bed?), I stepped aboard the C train and immediately found a seat (a seat!), only to realize seconds later that there was an eighteen or nineteen-year-old kid blocking the door and calling for a police officer. Fine. Whatever. A pain, a delay, but whatever. But then no police officer came. And it came to light that he was yelling because a woman no more than 5 feet tall had "punched" him in the back. And then she explained that it was only because he had been kicking her and wouldn't stop even after she repeatedly asked him. Then another woman joined the fray and announced that she had a job interview that she couldn't miss, then another man, seemingly calm and intent on conflict resolution, asked the woman to write down her name so that the young man could give it to the police upstairs and everything was starting to look up...

But then the kid was still half-heartedly calling for a police officer after receiving the woman's nameand the seemingly calm man announced that he was a corrections officer and that he was going to "lock up" the yelling kid if he didn't stop holding up the train, and then something must have gone horribly wrong very quickly because the next thing I knew the corrections officer had shoved the kid off the train and was more or less chasing him down the platform with the intent to inflict some manner of bodily harm and the two women (the initial assailant and the one with the job interview) were chasing after the corrections officer and telling him not to get himself in trouble.

And then eventually he got back on the train and the kid was nowhere to be found and everything resolved more or less as quickly and inexplicably as it had started.

Except:
Where were the MTA employees during all this?
For that matter, where were the police?
What if this was a slightly less ridiculous assault charge?
What if I was the assaulted party?

In the words of a very wise woman after the doors shut and we were on our way, "Ladies and gentlemen, it's only Tuesday."