Career Choices

The thing I love the most about being a commuter is the variety of folk you tend to see, meet and interact with on public transit. Usually I am a passive observer of the kaleidoscope of life. Today was different. 

Lady (and I use this term loosely) on the streetcar with a persistent hacking cough. After about 20 minutes of having her hack up a lung, another lady approaches her and says, "I have some cough drops, would you like one?"

Cougher lady reacts with a venomous hiss (really!) and shouts of, "Leave me alone! Stop HARASSING me!!" 

While the poor Samaritan tries to creep awa

y from the unexpected onslaught of verbal abuse, I suddenly find the whole thing hilarious and start laughing. And because I am laughing like an out-of-control hyena, the folks around me start to laugh as well.

Of course, this does nothing to calm the Cougher and she gets even more enraged and the shouting escalates and there is hand waving involved.

Finally, much to everyone's relief she gets off the vehicle and the last we see of her is the rude gesture directed at a streetcar full of giggling riders.

Moral of the story: I realise that I am not suited for the Diplomatic Corps.

The Punch Line

Riding home on the Subway the other night, I was lost in my own little wonderland world when I was snapped back to present day by a sudden loud exclamation and shout from another passenger. I looked up just in time to see a guy on the platform flip “the bird” and a young girl shaking her fist at him as the train pulled out of the station. The girl was best described as Trailer Park Chic with a definitive early 90s theme to her clothing. I think she was still getting her fashion trends from 90201 episodes. Her partner was cross between a budding K-Fed (pre access to Britney’s money) and J-Roc (from Trailer Park Boys) with a temper like Tyson’s and a vocabulary that would make Howard Stern blush. Together they made a charming couple.

Girl: That was my ex. What an AHole he is. Beat me up all the time. But I got him good as well.
Boyfriend: Too bad I didn’t see him earlier – I’d have loved to punch him out.
Girl: Yeah, that would have been great.
*pause*
Girl: But maybe not. I suppose that would go against my parole. I’m not ready to go back to jail. Me and [insert friend’s name] are going shopping to Buffalo next weekend.

Sights and Sounds of the City

As the subway trundled over a bridge this morning, I looked out onto the football field below. Someone had taken the trouble to spell out F*CK YOU! across the field. Now, if you're going to take the time, energy and effort; and you are an obviously innovative person, wouldn't you at least TRY to come up with something a little more creative?

I went to the ladies washroom mid afternoon. As I pushed open the stall door, I saw that the toilet seat was up. Either we have someone on the floor who is a chronic "hoverer" or someone who is on Estrogen shots. More investigation needed.

On the way home last night, I was sitting besides 2 teenage girls. As I tired to drown out their incessant chatter (which consisted of the words "like", "um" and "you know" used every other word) I happened to overhear an interesting piece of information:
Girl 1: "I found a Bon Jovi concert ticket at Union Station. I wanted to put it on EBay, but it's for tonight. Damn."
Girl 2: "Why don't you call around to sell it? Someone would want to go."
Girl 1: "I guess I will. Too bad, I could have made a lot on EBay. I heard the concert is sold out. Or I should have walked over to the ACC and sold it to a scalper."
.....and so on.

They talked about the ticket and their options for about 15 mins. Not once did either of them say "I could have returned it to the box office - the person who lost it must be worried."

What ever has happened to common decency?

We turned our clocks back for Daylight Savings this past weekend. It was simply LOVE-ER-LY leaving the office at 6pm yesterday and still waking out into sunshine!!!

On the subway in to work this morning, a little Asian lady was trying in vain to maintain her balance as the train swerved and swayed on its way downtown. She was too short to reach the overhead bar, and too far away from the vertical poles. After she had almost fallen over for the second time, a young man standing besides her put out his arm and told her to grab on.

She was quite steady the rest of the way.

The Inevitable

The train burst out of the tunnel and onto the bridge. The sardine packed commuters seemed to relax, as if there was suddenly more air and more space around them. I tried to look out of the windows, but the crowd was too dense, too stiff.

Someone shifted, and suddenly I could see out. And there IT was.

Among the trees that lined the side of the Don River valley, one stood out. Red flaming leaves visible among a sea of greens.

There was no denying it any longer. Fall has arrived.

Trainspotting

On a day when the temperature in the shade is a balmy 38 C, a girl gets onto the subway wearing
(1) stripped leggings
(2) a skirt
(3) a long sleeved top
(4) a halter neck undershirt
AND
(5) a Scarf!
She DID have flip-flops on, so perhaps that was her cooling balance.

A few stops later, a guy with a bike got on. He was wearing a suit, so was obviously not going to ride the bike. Was he taking it for a train ride then?

In the seat besides me - College/ University student watching recording of lecture on his funky IMac typing simultaneous notes on the same, while listening to his Ipod and occasionally checking blackberry for messages.
This guy would be fun to watch during a power blackout. Kinda like the cold turkey patients at the Betty Ford clinic!

Twenty something year old with faux fashion label clothing and wet, limp just-out-of-the-shower hair gets onto the Rapid Transit. In the 9 minutes from end to end of the RT line, she manages to brush and twist her hair into a chic bun; apply eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara and curl her eyelashes (ouch!); apply foundation, blush, lip liner and lipstick; check teeth for breakfast remnants and dab on a bit of perfume. I almost wanted to applaud her when she finally put down the last beauty product!!

And finally,

Old man gets onto subway car wearing old but neat suit. Carrying walking stick, reads newspaper – seems like any other old man commuter. Suddenly something moving on his jacket catches my eye. I try to peer past the raised newspaper and then I see it – a mouse in his top pocket! It’s only a matter of minutes before the lady sitting next to him gives a petrified shriek and rushes to the other end of the subway car.

Old man looks up startled. Smiles. Keeps reading.

And folks wonder why I love taking transit!

Dressed for Success

I begin every work day with the same routine. Repeatedly hit the clanging alarm, drag myself out of bed, stumble to the washroom, have a shower, stumble back to my room and then stand before my closet waiting for inspiration or divine intervention to hit me. Every morning I stand there with the knowledge that I have exactly 34.5 seconds to decide on what to wear and figure out if my choice of clothing is (a) washed (b) Out of the dryer (c) moderately unwrinkled (d) still fits me before I will start to fall behind on my schedule and inevitably be – late and running for the train.

When (note, no “ifs”) I’m terribly rich and moderately famous, I shall have a personal shopper and personal dresser. I shall then look as wonderfully turned out as some of the uber glamour chicks I see each day on the subway. At 7 am, when even the sun is still struggling to shine, these freaks of nature are well dressed, perfectly matched, prudently manicured, carefully coiffed and primed and pruned so that they look like they’ve just stepped out of a runway catalogue and onto the platform. They never run for trains (primarily coz they’d break their leg running in 4 inch overpriced shoes) and they never smudge their lip gloss as they serenely sip coffee and flip the pages of their newspaper. I also suspect that there’s actually no coffee in their overpriced flask – it just happened to match with the day’s ensemble.

Regardless, one day I will look just like them – in larger size clothing of course. And then even though I don’t need to take the subway to work anymore I will get onto a 7 am train looking just as coiffed and well groomed as they do, ‘cept I’ll be sipping on actual coffee of course!

Talking About Transit

I use the TTC every day. So do about a million others. And more than 75% of them are total commuter morons!

Like on escalators – stand right; walk left. It’s a simple concept, but may as well be quantum physics by the way people are completely unable to comprehend these basic instructions. And of course when one tries to enforce it, well, that’s crazy talk!

Or when a train pulls into the station and everyone rushes to the doors nearest the stairs or the elevator. HELLO….. There are about 50 doors on the train – ALL OPEN. How about you try another compartment instead of trying to quash yourself into a space that Tinkerbell would find tight and in the process holding up the train coz your oversize overpriced Louis Vomiton bag is blocking the doorway.

Or how about when the folks get into a compartment or a bus and promptly stop just past the doors, making it impossible for other people to comfortably and not to mention safely get on board. And even when the driver yells “Back of the bus please”, they move a fraction of an inch and look as if they’ve done the world the biggest favour. A close relative of the above kind of the people are the ones who don’t have to get off the bus or train, but still persist in blocking the doorway so that people are forced to walk in/ out around them. And God forbid someone accidentally bumps into them – it’s the prelude to the Armageddon!

Or the person with a 100 bags who thinks that it’s ok to deny others a seat because their bag of groceries and their shopping bags have had a tougher day than the rest of the folks on the train. And when asked to move the bags usually makes disgruntle noises and annoyed faces. Like it’s not THEIR fault you don’t have a seat!

Or the douchbag masquerading as human who thinks that as a member of the male species it’s ok for him to sit with spayed legs and thus restrict MY sitting space to a minimum. If this is an attempt to let the world know that you have big balls, it’s not working. All it says about you is – “I’m an inconsiderate TOOL”

I could go on. But I can feel my blood pressure rising. I will instead go out and buy a smoothie. It won’t solve the problem of moronic fellow commuters, but it WILL make my tongue go blue… and that’s better than my face going purple!

The Morning Commute

When riding the subway in to work this morning, a man sat down across from me.

A man who looked like he had stepped right off the pages of a travel book or the Lonely Planet calendar. He didn't belong on a subway bound for downtown TO. He should be been sitting on a sunny bench outside a little shop, on a busy bazaar street somewhere in a little town in northern Africa. Tunisia perhaps.

Only he could have pulled off the ensemble he was wearing - khaki pants, a blue striped shirt, faded green vest and red cap. A Muslim prayer cap. It was his unusual ensemble that first caught my attention, but then I looked closer and saw his face… and then his eyes.

They were old eyes. Tired eyes. Eyes that saw without seeing - looked without looking. Eyes that had probably seen long years of hardships and suffering - perhaps still did.
He sat very still throughout the ride and stared past me into nothingness. Was he thinking about his past, his home country… so many miles away? Or was he merely lost in the early morning haze that most commuters envelop themselves?

My stop arrived and I stood up in preparation. Just as I stepped towards the door, he looked up and our eyes met. I smiled. He smiled back.
And then I saw what I had not seen before. His eyes - be they old and tired, were also wise and kind. And when he smiled at me, his whole appearance changed. He was no longer an old forgotten man on the subway. He was now someone's dad, someone's granddad and once, perhaps still someone's great love.

I stepped off the train surprisingly awake and alive! I think my day is going to be a good one!

Transit in the T Dot

I had an unexpected day off last week thanks to the TTC (Toronto Transit) wildcat strike on Monday.

I woke up to pandemonium on the streets of the T Dot as the 800,000 regular TTC commuters found themselves locked out of the subways and no streetcars and busses running either! The Taxi services were going nuts and at one time I was on hold for 20 minutes straight. The second time I tried… held for about 10 minutes before a very harassed operator told me it was a minimum 1.5 hr wait! Upon which I called work and said I wasn't coming in!

I'm trying to upload a pic we took of Yonge St. just backed up all the way.... but stupid blogger isn't loading it!

Fortunately everything was back to normal the next morning… or so I thought! Just two days later on Wednesday morning … some m*f* decided that life wasn't worth living and so decided to ram into a train. This foolish - not to mention selfish- act resulted in the entire eastbound line being shut down - DURING MORNING RUSH HOUR. I mean seriously… if you ARE going to kill yourself… there's a perfectly good lake available… and you won't be inconveniencing anyone that way!

After I was unceremoniously turned out of the subway, I made my way (together with about 500 other irate commuters) up to the bus bays. Of course no one actually knew what was going on… and let alone actually knew where we were… so I just got on to the first street car going in a general downtownish direction! In all that pandemonium.... I befriended a Parsee couple from Bombay who were new to the city and after a meandering, but rather interesting streetcar ride through various parts of downtown… I finally arrived at work 45 mins late but having met some very nice people and an unexpected tour of some lesser known parts of the city!

A funny thing happened on the way to work.

A funny thing happened on the way to work Saturday.

As the subway emerged from the shadowy depths for the short span between the Eglinton and Davisville stations... I awoke from my sleepy stupor and saw trees in bloom! Pale green leaves and buds were pushing their way past the dead stems of winter and slowly... but surely making their presence felt. And although the day was a crappy rainy miserable one... just seeing those little buds made it seem so much better.

Skirts and sandals to follow shortly!