Urine-Soaked Station Plans To Add Butlers

Here’s the dilemma: You’re on a PATCO train, heading back to Lindenwold after a hard day at the office. But you’re stuck. You’re carrying some dry cleaning with you — you know why, you sly dog! — but you need to get it done before heading home to your apartment for a candlelit dinner for two. And you had to work late at the office, and you’re kind of stuck, but you really need to get these clothes dry cleaned, and…

… looks like your entire evening just went up in smoke. (See, because you were going to be at your house, where it’s still legal to smoke in Jersey and Philly, at least for now.)

But before this extended metaphor begins to make even less sense: Fear not! New Jersey transit is here to save the day! Or, maybe. Beginnig today, the Inquirer reports, PATCO workers will ask commuters as they exit or board trains if they would use a concierge service if one set up shop at the station.

Lindenwold is at the end of the PATCO High-Speed Line, and also a stop on the “Gambler’s Express” to Atlantic City. There’s already a concierge service in ritzy Maplewood in North Jersey, and the Lindenwold stop is a bit dingy, especially for the busiest stop on the line.

But, well, it seems like the station needs a few things more than a concierge service:

“Why don’t they put a coffee shop in this station instead? I’ve even thought of doing that myself,” said [Mark] Johnson, an Amtrak worker. “In the mornings you could sell coffee here as fast as you could pour it.” [...]

[George] Wolf, with an NYPD cap pulled over his eyes, said he would never use a concierge. He had more immediate concerns.

“What this station needs is a 24-hour bathroom for starters,” Wolf said. “It smells OK today, but usually the tunnels here stink to high hell because there’s no place else to go. Trash cans would be nice, too. I mean, just look at all the garbage blowing around.”

There’s only one way to solve this: A concierge service that brings you little cups to piss in.

Will Jeeves serve in Lindenwold? [Inquirer]