Four reasons why someone dropped a fork at the train station.

I saw a fork waiting for the train. At first, I thought it was a stick, until I realized it was too shiny. Then I thought it was a piece of scrap metal, twisted off the undercarriage of the train. Then I realized it was a stainless steel dinner fork.

I immediately felt empathy for the poor soul who dropped it. He's going to have a disappointing and perhaps messy lunch. Where is my fork, he'll wonder. Then he'll eat his macaroni and cheese with his fingers.

How is the going to explain it to his wife? "Where's the fork I put in your lunch bucket," she will ask. 

"I got mugged," he'll lie. "The took all my cutlery. Thank God no one was hurt."

Listen: someone standing at the platform of the train station, dropped a fork and it fell between the railroad ties. They either did it early in the morning today, or sometime over the weekend. But none of these make sense to me. In either case, why does someone have a fork out at the commuter train station? And why didn't they notice that they dropped it?

I have a few theories:

1. Extraordinary rendition

 The person was grabbed from behind, a hood thrown over his head, and he was dragged off to a CIA safe house in Eastern Europe. I take comfort knowing that the government is always vigilant, although kidnapping a terrorist while he waits to go to work isn't much of a James Bond scene. Not much cloak, and not much dagger. Just a bunch of thugs grabbing a guy.

Unless they did it and no one noticed. Then, it's hats off to them. Maybe it even happened before my eyes. I, and everyone on the platform had our memories wiped as a result. Which leads me to my second theory.

2. Alien abduction

I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying that the circumstances are consistent with being kidnapped by little green men. Having my memory wiped is symptomatic of extraterrestrial intervention. The fact that a man was once there and the fork being the only thing left to remind us is also symptomatice.

But I'm just saying. Is all.

3. A near riot

As he stood, eating his breakfast with a fork, he was shoved from behind, which started a fight. In the turmoil, the train came, and everyone stopped fighting and boarded. It's therefore understandable that the person forgot he dropped his fork.

You may have noticed that I assume it was a man that dropped his fork. I think that's a reasonable inference. Only a man would be so stupid.

4. It was holding him back

Maybe he made a reasoned calculation and realized that he needed to shed ballast. The fork was the first thing to go. I work with a lot of weird people and it would be consistent behavior for at least two of them.

Anyway, I'm writing this post because I'm savoring the irony that, today at lunch, I opened my lunch bag and noticed that my fork was missing. Talk about a coincidence.