Now that this introduction stuff is out of the way I guess its time to get into more of the day-to-day stuff. Nothing too eventful today…I hate public transit. I grew up on a farm where we either walked or drove everywhere.
I feel guilty about pushing the stop request button and inconveniencing people. Sometimes I wait until someone else pushes it first, and oftentimes I’m like 5 stops beyond where I want to be.
Where I’m from people say “please” and “thank you” and let you bud in line if you really have to pee. Here it’s different. I like it but this whole public transit thing scares me. Although I pay the same fair as other passengers I still feel like a second-class rider. There are many who utilize it everyday, or have been for years. These are the ones with the truly vested interest in public transit. I’m an occasional rider, subject to the prevailing attitude of the long-term rocket riders.
People are pretty territorial; most rules governing behavior simply aren’t adhered to. I don’t know if it’s a function of the demographic, or of the swelling population competed over the same amount of resources. But people devolve down there. People mark their territory; they leave their garbage behind as a sign that this is their stomping ground. They fight for supremacy, all jostling for the higher pole position so as to not have someone’s armpit stuck in their face. I guess there is no better way to dominate someone then to force them to smell your stank ass B.O. at 7 in the morning.
It really is, at some points, the law of the jungle, and the TTC hurdles us back into the Paleolithic era or (whenever cave men first were invented) all at 100 mph. The rapid devolution of man; all courtesy of the taxpayers of Toronto and the Province of Ontario. For all the good that public transit affords our city (lower emissions, convenience etc.) perhaps its greatest gift is it offers a glimpse of what life was like or could return to if there was another wildcat strike.
On this bus or subway I am definitely the lesser specimen, I don’t push to get on, I give up my seat, I don’t argue with the bus driver. Once I watched some strung out lady yell at the bus driver. Right away I thought to myself “OMG that ladies gonna’ get in trouble.” Then I realized-by who? The bus driver? I felt this way because I rode one of those big ass school buses to school every morning. You couldn’t mess around on them. For me the hierarchy of authority was like –policeman, fireman, bus driver. They were more important than a judge!
Where I’m at is a far cry from where I came from.
posted by El Chupacabra @ 10:18 AM
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