Phew

An unattended 'Dora the Explorer' backpack on the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform stirred up the evening commute, for some.

"Is this your bag?" an anxious looking man asked a father standing close by with his son. It's a pink Dora bag, of course it was not. "Whose bag is that? Does anyone know??" the man called out. A couple of people shook their heads, but nobody owned up to the bag. "Well," the anxious man continued, "you know what they say: 'if you see something, say something'." And off he went, up the stairs, to get help.

Damnit, I thought to myself, is this going to cause one of those police investigations? That's totally going to delay the trains, and I'm one stop away from home. Why would there be a bomb in a pink backpack at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, a station which name nobody can even pronounce? I was waiting for the speakers to go "due to a police blahblahblah" but before that happened, the awesome G trained rolled in.

As I stepped inside and waited for the doors to close, one lone police officer approached the bag. He poked the bag with his finger. When nothing happened, he unzipped the top flap and looked inside. Nothing. He then swung the bag onto his shoulder and headed for the stairs.

And then the rest of us had to ride the G train listening to the all too familiar announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a message from the New York City Police Department, if you see a suspicious package or activity on the train or on the platform, please don't keep it to yourself, tell a police officer or an MTA employee" ...and you know the rest.