Next Stop

School has resumed (which explains the delay in posting and will explain the subsequent sporadic posting). As a poor college student, I rely heavily on public transportation for most (if not all) of my getting from point A to point B and the occasional point C and D needs (not that they would be seedy in nature). Some frown upon it, and I frown upon those who frown upon it. I also frown upon those who have to fuck up the experience. I look at them as being worse than murderers (a slight but apt exaggeration, in my opinion) because they lack the common sense and decency to do the simplest of tasks.

By that, I mean I strongly dislike people who refuse to take the window seat or don't move when you're trying to get out. This is a pretty simple thing to do but they don't do it. And it's so enraging because something so simple isn't done. I just want to sit down, not crush your skull with my hands or anything of the sort. You don’t have to take the goddamn aisle seat and leave the window seat perfectly empty! I always offer my seat to old ladies even if I stood for an hour waiting for the damn bus. Why can’t other people extend the same courtesy? Can we even call ourselves a society when common courtesy towards our fellow humans is retracted without as much as a syllable for an explanation? Why you gotta be a jerk, fellow commuter?

This explains why most of the time I stand on the subway: I'm inside the subway car and not sitting in a seat NOT being outside and standing on the subway car itself! This isn't an action movie... yet. Though I have found myself snarling and wanting to tackle people who don't pay the fare. It's $1.50, it's not an arm or leg. Yeah, I'd like it to be the old price but we can't do anything to change it for the better if you're going to be a dick and hop the turnstiles. If anything, it'll raise the price! That has happened before!

$1.50 is a small price to pay for peace of mind. Or would you rather take your chances, get caught without your ticket/valid pass/etc and have to pay up to at least $250 for being a lazy jackass and not paying a comparatively tiny sum of money? If you don't want to pay, then walk or have someone give you a ride. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.

I remember some semesters where I had to walk to and from school. I got a decent workout- hour and a half in the scorching hot sun wearing black. Good times. It was better than risking paying $250+ for riding without a ticket.

Not much can be done about those kinds of people who don't pay the fare and are bastards with the seating arrangements. One just has to pay their fare and go on with their day.

Repeat that, repeat (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet,
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins