Matinee Ladies

It's Wednesday and according to the old commercials today is Prince spaghetti day in South Boston.

It's also matinee day in Manhattan. And that is not good news for commuters from central New Jersey.

Oh, the morning bus ride into the city is okay with the usual collection of quiet readers, sleepers and a sprinkling of laptop commandos, most of whom keep very, very, very quiet on the hour long trip from the park and ride at Exit 8-A into EnWhyCee.

But oh, the trip home tonight will be quite a different story.

The Yammering Yentas from Retirement Acres will be out in force. The Broadway shows all end around 4:00 p.m. and for the next hour or two the regular commuter buses will be jammed, not only with the poor schlubs who have just spent the day being clubbed to death in corporate offices all over town like so many baby seals, but also with highly wound-up ladies "of a certain age" (and their long suffering spouses, or at least the spouses who haven't yet died yet in self-defense).

They will take the outside window seats. Their spouses will be seated on the aisles. And they will review the shows they've seen. To each other. Across the spouses AND the aisles. At the tops of their lungs. While observing the passing scene in the adjacent lanes on the turnpike and dispensing invaluable driving advice to the driver. Also at the tops of their lungs. It will be the longest hour of my week.

But, God love 'em, they help support the American Musical Theater (the three most beautiful words in the English language!) So thank God for them.

And also thank God for iPod! So I can drown 'em out.

And also thank God for The Scissor Sisters ... and Steve Schalchlin, who give me something worth listening to, aside from the Yammering Yentas.