Hamptons Subway Crews Find Lost Wedding Rings

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

What celebrity wife was seen canoodling not with the celebrity she is married to on our B Train between Quogue and Quiogue, but with some other celebrity who is married very publicly to somebody else?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

We wish to congratulate Henry Bastion of East Quogue on his birthday. Bastion, who is a subway car dispatcher working at our yard in Montauk, won the annual award for most continuous days working without a break in 2023, on the job 24 hours a day seven days a week between February 14 and October 3 that year. Birthday cards should be sent to him in care of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, where he remains hospitalized.

WEDDING RINGS REDUX

Three weeks ago we reported about the couple on the train between Southampton and Water Mill getting into an argument, which got louder and louder, resulting in tears. Then both of them took off their wedding rings, went to the back of the car — they were in the last car — and threw the rings out onto the tracks.

Two hours later, humbled and calmed down, the couple appealed to the subway workers on the Water Mill platform to help them find the rings they had thrown, because they had kissed and made up.

The conclusion of the story was that this couple found the rings, thanked all our employees and, after more tears and hugs, went up the escalator at the Water Mill platform hand in hand.

It turns out that this is not the conclusion to the story. The next day, another young couple returned to the Water Mill platform and said that those rings were their rings and, indeed, they had fought and then made up, but now things were better and could we help them find the rings.

We are disturbed by this turn of events. Years ago, in simpler times, the people who showed up to claim the rings would assuredly be those who lost them. But then is then and now is now. This is a conundrum, a real “Sophie’s choice,” a Hansel and Gretel and a Romeo and Juliet all rolled into one. Frankly, we don’t know what to do. However, we took the names and addresses of the second couple, sent out a search party to look for the first, and intend to examine the security cameras set up on all the platforms and trains to see what was what. So everybody wait and we will see what’s what.

Back in the old days, we didn’t have security cameras.

A SUGGESTION BOX ACCUSATION

According to some conservatives, Hunter Biden has been leaving a $20 bill in an envelope in the small suggestion box nailed to the wall on the Georgica platform every Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. And his dad, our president, picks it up at 6 a.m. We were stunned to hear about this and this past Tuesday looked at the surveillance tape at that hour on that platform and did not see such an activity. Now we are told that some snitch must have leaked the word out ahead of time and it was not going on anymore.

DETOUR

A family of rare tiger salamanders has set up a family home on the tracks between East Hampton and Sag Harbor. The nest is made from wet twigs, and the female is sitting on her eggs there. Those passengers wishing to take the subway between these two stations should take a detour to Bridgehampton until such time as the Environmental Protection Agency officials, who are currently flying here from Washington, D.C., have arrived here sometime next week to tell us what to do.

SPEED BUMPS INSTALLED

Riders have frequently complained of the excess speeds at which the motormen drive while negotiating the straightaway between the Bridgehampton station and the Water Mill station. It is the longest, straightest stretch on the system, and though the maximum speed is 42 miles an hour, the motormen have been cranking the trains up to 60 and 70 miles an hour, which is scaring the passengers.

Numerous attempts have been made to ask the motormen to not do this, but to no avail. There are six motormen; all six are doing it, and they are unionized so we cannot fire them.

Because our passengers are our first concern, we have therefore decided to install speed bumps on this 3-mile stretch to make them slow down. If they don’t, passengers are urged to hang on tight.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

The Hamptons Subway System has long fought attempts to unionize the workers here at our company, and we have succeeded in every way, except when it has come to our motormen. They do, after all, have special skills, and were we to fire them as we have done to others before the union came, we would have a hard time replacing them. Motormen must be expert at stopping the trains every time at all the platforms, not moving the train while people are boarding, and avoiding bumping into trains in front of them by going too fast, or by being bumped by trains coming up behind for going too slow.

As a result of this situation, I have had to go easy on the six motormen who have been repeatedly cited for speeding. I gave them tongue-lashings numerous times, and I have four times filed complaints with their union boards, although none did any good.

The speed bump solution, voted 4–3 by our board yesterday, will solve the situation. I expect that these testosterone-filled young cowboys will just continue to speed through this section of track each of the 10 times a day they go through, but now, each time, they will have to run the gauntlet. Eventually, it will knock some sense into them.

AS WE GO TO PRESS

We’ve just been told that yesterday a third couple has appeared on the Water Mill platform looking for the wedding rings they threw onto the tracks last Tuesday.

As a result the Hamptons Subway board held an emergency meeting this morning and voted 3–2 to place signs on all the suggestion boxes saying that if you plan to throw out wedding rings you must fill out a form taped atop the box ahead of time so we have your name, address, phone number and ring values so we can return them to you if we find them.