The Streetcar Chronicles

Sitting here waiting for dinner to arrive. I went and finished my Christmas shopping after work and didn’t feel like stopping in for groceries so I figured it’d be a take-out night.

Getting home was a bitch. The first streetcar that came quickly filled up so I waited for the second one. A few minutes after getting on, the driver announced that the car would be short turning well before where I needed to go. Off I went to wait again. A streetcar came, but it was out of service. When I finally did get on a streetcar that was operational and was going where I needed it too, it got stuck behind a stalled car and we idled in traffic for fifteen minutes.

I was stuck sitting in front of these two teachers, a male and a female. By the sounds of the conversation, it sounded like the male teacher’s been spending a bit too much time with a particular student. His female friend (who emphasized every word she spoke), was trying to convince him to put some space between him and the student. “You don’t want to give her the wrong impression.”

“I know,” he blathered on, “it’s just we have so much fun together.” Perhaps someone should have told him that teaching wasn’t a way to pick up (under-age) chicks.

I could have put my headphones on, but my ipod was in my backpack and my hands were full of bags. It would have been an awkward venture so I tried my best to tune them out.

The girl sitting in front of me was eating a hot dog and I was torn between wanting to take it from her and have it myself, or throwing up my lunch from the noxious fumes said dog was emitting.

The guy sitting directly across from me was giving some serious competition to switchboard operators. He was making call after call on his Blackberry. I can tell you that he will be going to Kinkos tonight to send a fax and he’s in the process of re-financing his mortgage. While speaking to his mortgage broker, he announced to the car full of his fellow citizens that his wife, a lawyer, makes about $75-80,000 a year.  It’s amazing what people will say on the phone while they’re in public. Perhaps Mr. Operator thought his Blackberry came with an invisibility cloak that prevented us from seeing and hearing him?

And then there was the gentleman standing on the back steps yelling that the driver open the doors. Which was followed by a response from the front of the car of, “he’s not there! (The driver had stepped out to see how things were progressing.)

I’m sure these types of conversations happen all of the time, I just usually have my headphones in or am distracted with the book I’m reading.  I wonder if psychology students ever ride the rails to get a glimpse of the human interaction that takes place? If nothing else, it would provide some blog fodder.