Okay, this is what happened. I was on the subway, which wasn't at all crowded. Three people got on, two men and one woman. Despite the fact that there were plenty of empty seats, one of the men instructed the woman to sit beside me. Which was kind of irksome. People really don't sit next to strangers on the subway unless there's no alternative. It just seems impolite. Anyway, the man then stepped across the aisle to consult the subway map, returned, and sat on the other side of the woman. The second man stood in the aisle in front of them.

The first man started telling a story fairly loudly and expressively, but I couldn't completely hear him over my walkman. Then I heard one sentence pretty clearly. It was enough to make me turn off my walkman to hear the rest. The combination of delivery and content was irresistible. I'll try to recount it as best I can.

- So, then I say, "Is this really a 911 situation? Because whatever happened here is clearly over. I mean, I don't know where the rest of him is, but he's definitely not here anymore." And he says, "Oh, this is a 911." So, I call 911 and say, "I have an emergency, I'm down in the subway," and the woman on the other end says, "No, we don't take calls from the subway, you have to call this other number," and I say, "But this is an emergency," and she says, "It doesn't matter. We don't take subway calls."

So, I call the number she gives me and say, "I have an emergency, I'm down in the subway," and the guy on the phone says, "What station?" and I say "I'm at 46th Street," and he says, "That's not us, you have to call a different number," and I say, "But this is an emergency!" and he says, "Doesn't matter, we don't cover that station."

So, I call the number he gives me, and tell this third person that I'm down in the subway, and all I want to do is report this emergency, and he says, "If it's an emergency, you've got to call 911." I say, "I tried that, but that they said that I had to call some other number, and then that guy told me to call you!"

Then the guy tells me, "What you need to do is go and find a transit cop," so, I say, "But you don't understand, I've found a human leg here! I don't think I should leave it!" Then the guy actually says, "So, it's a leg. Are you worried that it's going to get up and walk away?"

At this point the conductor announced that the next stop would be Roosevelt Island, and the man telling the story realized that they had been going in the wrong direction, so they got up and got off the train. I watched them walk down the platform, and I could tell by his motioning, and by the looks on the faces of the woman and the second man that he was continuing the story. I wish I could have heard the rest! I don't know if it was true, but he told it as though it were. There were moments when I reacted audibly to what he said, but I tried to disguise those reactions as coughs, so they wouldn't know that I was listening to the story, and not my walkman. It was like having a personal travel version of This American Life. It was a good way to start the month, I think.