Hamptons Subway Adds Giraffes to Permitted Animal List

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Taylor Swift took the subway from Westhampton Beach to Amagansett where, surprising everybody, she sang and played, drawing a sold-out audience to The Stephen Talkhouse Wednesday evening. She looked great, as always.

SANTOS CANNOT RUN FOR CONGRESS

Former Rep. George Santos, voted out of the House by politically inspired opponents who did not understand the fibs he told were a joke, has now announced he will run for the office of congressman from the 1st District, which is the district covering the East End.

However, he will not be allowed to do this. As everyone knows, two months ago, Mr. Santos signed a contract and so became the general manager of Hamptons Subway reporting directly to Commissioner Bill Aspinall.

“It’s an ironclad contract,” the commissioner told us reporters here at the newsletter. “It’s for three years. And he cannot resign and take another full-time job until Feb. 1, 2027.”

Santos was hired by the commissioner because of the billions he made in the transportation business in Brazil before coming to America and now, as a former congressman, he could be the new liaison between the subway and Washington, D.C., in obtaining vastly increased funding for our service.

“Mr. Santos, at age 15, became the president of the Rio de Janeiro subway system his father owned. That system is now not only the largest system in Brazil but in all of South America. And so we paid him his eight-figure annual salary for all three years ahead of time. That’s how much faith we have in him,” the commissioner continued.

“During February and March, Santos has been busy building a scale model of Hamptons Subway in the basement of the oceanfront mansion he’s been provided. With that nearing completion and with his excited announcement that this scale model has given him tremendous new ideas for Hamptons Subway which he will disclose shortly, there is no way in hell we are going to allow that he run for office instead of doing what he’s been hired to do.”

FIRE DRILL MELEE

The Hamptons Subway conducted a surprise fire drill at 11 in the morning last Saturday. But it was not a success. The trains were supposed to go to the next station, let everybody off, and have them go up the escalators to the street. But at least half the motormen stopped their trains in their tracks, and the passengers had to be led down the narrow pathways to the stations along the third rail. Also, with the siren noise of the fire drill, the authorities above ground thought it was some sort of enemy attack and sent everybody in all the towns streaming down to the subway platforms where it was safe. So in the end, there were people going in both directions. It wasn’t good.

And then it got worse. Less than an hour after the drill ended, a fire did break out in the subway, in the Le Sommeil dining car on the train between Water Mill and Southampton, when a waiter delivering a chicken flambé dish set fire to the lace curtains and then the entire dining car itself. The diners were evacuated to adjacent cars, the alarms sounded and this time everybody, believing it was another drill, stayed right where they were. Only one woman, a trophy wife who did not want her name used, was injured. She suffered singed eyebrows from the wayward flambé. Over all, it was a traumatic and entirely unsuccessful day indeed.

THE SUGGESTION BOX IS BACK

Regular readers of this column will recall that three months ago the Hamptons Subway Suggestion Box was stolen from its spot on the wall by the turnstiles on our Hampton Bays platform. Subsequently, we received a note demanding a ransom to get it back, which we refused. Two weeks later, we received a piece of the box in the mail from the thief. The note said that the thief would send an additional piece of the box every week until we relented and paid $50,000. After that, more and more pieces continued to come every week in the mail. It was an agonizing decision not to pay the ransom during this period, but we held fast.

Two weeks ago, the pieces stopped coming. And then somebody got the idea that perhaps we had received all of it back so there was nothing further to be sent. A puzzlemaster was brought in and confirmed that indeed, much to the chagrin of the thief, the entire suggestion box had been returned to us.

The box is now back on the wall, all reassembled from the 15 wooden pieces sent to us, and after experimenting with different ways to attach it to the wall so it could not once again be removed, we have discovered that heavy bolts were strong, welding was stronger, but the strongest was Krazy Glue.

And so there it is, once again ready to receive your ideas, thoughts, complaints and just whatever wacko ideas that might come into your mind. Marco Abianti, a flagman at the Southampton station who was a woodworker back in Italy, his homeland, has done an excellent job in rebuilding the box. You can hardly see the cracks where the pieces were put back together.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

At our monthly board meeting last Thursday, the members voted 4 to 3 to institute a new policy regarding dogs on the subway.

Welcome on any car on any subway train are small, cute dogs of the following breeds: toy poodles, bichons, long-haired Chihuahuas and miniature Pomeranians. They must be on leashes and they must be wearing the purple, pink and green bows that will be handed out free by token booth operators who will test the dog’s attitude by placing a hand in front of the dog’s mouth at ribbon pickup time, and if the dog does not bite, award the ribbon.

Small, cute dogs of the above breeds does not mean full-grown poodles, black Labradors, cockapoos, cats of any kind, boa constrictors or giraffes, one of which, I am told, incredibly, was recently brought onto a train at Quogue headed east and taken two stops before the conductors came and gave him the old heave-ho even though it was not his stop.