Hamptons Subway Newsletter April 12

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Jerry Seinfeld and his wife Jessica were seen sitting on a park bench just outside the entrance to the Water Mill station on Montauk Highway, apparently discussing whether or not they wanted to take the subway.

NEW STRAPS FOR STRAPHANGERS

Commissioner Bill Aspinall’s brother Biff, the entrepreneur, has patented and developed a new kind of strap for our subway cars. The traditional strap hangs down so riders can hold onto it while the train goes through the turn. The trouble is that, when not in use, the straps sway bothersomely into tall people’s heads. Biff’s new strap retracts into the ceiling of the car, well out of the way of tall people’s heads.

When you want it, you just reach up and press a button on the ceiling and the strap slowly lowers for easy use. When done, you press the button again and the strap retracts. The strap has been installed on two cars as an experiment; riders complained they could not reach the button. Biff’s answer was to find a tall person. You make new friends that way. And a tall person cannot act annoyed when he has lowered the strap himself by pressing the button.

LE SOMMEIL IS NO MORE

The Michelin four-star French restaurant Le Sommeil, which for the past seven weeks has been the food car on the Hamptons Subway, has ended its lease with us just as the spring season was getting underway.

Monsieur Pepe Le Fix, the manager of the establishment, says that the parting occurred by mutual agreement between the parties, and there were no hard feelings. According to a translator of thick French accents, “Things just didn’t work out,” is what Le Fix said, with a smile and a bow, to that morning’s patrons. They were devastated to hear the news that the operation was kaput, right as they piled into the dining car to get their jolt of Le Petit Snort d’Schnapps. (This drink, made with Pernod and coffee, has become a favorite among our regulars.) Le Fix was busy with a screwdriver, removing some of the restaurant equipment that had been installed, when asked about the departure.

The management of the Hamptons Subway regrets the departure of Monsieur Le Fix and his operation, but is pleased to announce that a new restaurant, bearing the same name, will open on the subway next week.

GUNFIRE IN THE TUNNEL

The original Hamptons Subway was built in 1928 with warehouse storage rooms behind heavy iron doors throughout both sides of the tunnels. In recent years, because they are no longer used for what was originally intended, the rooms have been leased out from time to time for parties or meetings.

The gunfire heard last Tuesday at 11 p.m. came from a fundraising dinner hosted by the Republican Party, celebrating the heroes of the events of January 6 who tried to prevent the certification of the last presidential election because the winner supposedly lost. Apparently, one group of Proud Boys turned on another. It is not yet known if there were casualties. An initial investigation suggests that because all weapons were collected at the door before festivities began, the aggrieved party fired AK-15 assault rifles handed down to them through subway ceiling air vents that exhaust hot air through grates on the front lawns of wealthy Democratic homeowners above.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Those who want to believe that the parting of Hamptons Subway and Monsieur Le Fix’s bogus operation was amicable should think again. The departure of Le Sommeil was anything but.

Monsieur Le Fix did not pay his rent. After the first month, paid in cash in Euros, all we got was checks that bounced. We have five consecutive monthly bounced checks.

Monsieur Le Fix’s explanation for this is that he has suddenly, after six months, discovered that the gold-leaf letters we painted on the outside of the dining car spell out “Le Sommeil,” when, in fact, his Paris-based operation is actually called “le sommelier.” This minor error, he says, was a cause of considerable pain and suffering, since for six months, his operation was held up to ridicule because diners would be laughing at him while they ate since he, who did not speak much English, did not notice the error. The cost of that ridicule, he said, was not only the five months he owed us, but also an additional five months of future rent, which, he said, would therefore leave him there right up to the beginning of December without having paid one further centime.

Our response to this was to issue him an eviction notice. His response to that was to refuse to leave. And our response to his response was to lock the doors of the adjacent cars so that nobody, other than those coming directly from a station platform during the few seconds the doors opened and closed, could go to the restaurant. Many customers noticed the briefness of the stops on the trains during this period.

And so, thank you very much, he left. His service will be replaced next week by a restaurant operation newly formed by my brother Biff Aspinall, who has registered the misspelled name as a business enterprise and thus can legally resume the lease. (We hope he pays. Ha ha.) The fare will change. Biff will serve hamburgers, hotdogs and spaghetti and meatballs, all things he personally knows the recipes for.

I can tell you from personal experience that these items are very tasty indeed, and will be served up quickly, so that patrons can get their meals swiftly and gobble them down in time to arrive promptly at their intended stations.

I can’t tell you how many complaints we have had about Le Sommeil during the last six months by straphangers who went there, placed orders and then had to wait as the train went around our entire subway circuit three times before they even got their bread baskets.

Good riddance to Le Sommeil. Who likes snails anyway?

ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM COMMISSIONER ASPINALL

Next week we are inaugurating a new promotion on the subway, which is buy one, get one free. You buy one subway ticket and they give you a second one which is a different color. This second ticket can only be used while you are still using the subway with the first ticket and is not transferable. I think that is how this works. I’m reading the rules on the back of the second ticket. This doesn’t look quite right.