Butterflies and Unicorns

Pictrues Courtesy of FanPop

Recently, I got a comment on here about how terrible of a person I am. I just want to set the record straight here. Clearly this blog is for entertainment purposes. Most of my posts are written pre-coffee. I am an overly nice person in real life and in fact, my husband yelled at me the other day for being “too nice” because people tend to “walk all over me”!

This blog is a way for me to vent because it blows my mind what people do in public spaces. I sit there and usually don’t say anything! I think I have only snapped ONCE in two and a half years of being a train commuter, on someone on the T and that was the other day when I seriously thought I was going to miss my stop because they were too stupid to move out of the way of the ONLY door that lets people off the train.

Clearly I am irritated that I have to sit with people that smell like cat piss, peppers, curry, onions, salami, hang-over-smell and so on. Clearly, I hate when people pluck their f*cking eyebrows next to me and dispose of them…on me! Clearly, I hate it when people have troughs of popcorn and spray it everywhere and get popcorn grease on my suede jacket and ruin it. However, I bite my tongue though because I am TOO NICE! This blog is my outlet and so many of you click on this blog because you can relate and I appreciate that you continue to see what I have to say!

It is obvious that I’d rather hop in my new Barbie Jeep and head into the city with my radio blasting and the top down. However, the traffic is horrendous and the price of parking is outrageous. So, in order to have spending money and get in and out of the city at a reasonable time, I have chosen to take the train with the good and the bad. Mostly it’s good but there are times that it’s bad and those times, get posted on my blog.

I have had some heart touching moments on the train. I write about those too. The blind leading the blind. A blind man took a visiting college student and showed her were to go! He made a great point, if he didn’t know where he was going he’d be lost in the dark! The violins at North Station in the winter time are great! I love them. The fact that I have made friends on the train and am now considered by fellow train riders “Charlie’s Angels”. However, I’d say 95% of the time, this blog is complaining. It’s sarcastic. It’s my outlet that fellow train commuters can relate to.

If you don’t take the train, you probably think I am a whiney b*tch. Or, you don’t believe me that people actually do this sh*t in public. Ohhh, but they do and that’s why I can write about it. You can’t make this sh*t up! You just can’t!

So, to those of you who read my blog and can relate to my silly experiences and can laugh at them: Thanks! I appreciate the love!

To those of you who think that I am an awful person: Life (and public transit) isn’t always butterflies and unicorns and when it’s not, I am going to point it out.

Culture Kids

Last night when I got on the T, I noticed a grandmother and a granddaughter standing next to me. The grandmother says to the girl “When we get to North Station, head straight for the escalator. If we get separated, we’ll meet at the top of the escalator.” That’s a pretty smart gramma for having a plan. It was rush hour and if you get separated from a kid who doesn’t know the ins and outs of public transit, you could get lost. We got off at North Station and the granddaughter did exactly that, went directly toward the escalator. They got to the top and the grandmother goes “Great job. Now walk in a straight line and follow the crowd. I don’t want you to get trampled.”

I thought this was pretty neat. It’s great to teach kids how to use public transit to get around a city. It makes them less intimidated to use it when they are adults. I recall going into Boston to see Disney on Ice every year for my birthday with my parents and we’d hop on the T. Being kids from New Hampshire, my sister and I were wide eyed to the characters we’d encounter on the T. I always remember thinking it was the greatest thing that there was a stop called “Lechmere” because when you’re a child of the 80’s, that is where all of your home electronics came from.  

Fast forward and my sister and I were young adults. My grandparents took us into New York City. During that stay, we took the trains, ferries, taxi’s and limo’s. My grandfather had a story for each way of transit which made my sister, grandmother and I laugh at each one. It was a great experience because we experienced all the ways of travel in a city in one weekend. We also went to Ellis Island, did some shopping, ate at the Oyster Bar and attempted to see RENT (our limo got stuck in traffic and the box office literally shut in our faces. My sister and I got a fancy dessert while my grandparents enjoyed a “Manny-Hanny” and a gin martini.)

By showing kids and young adult’s culture and different ways of life, it does help them be less intimidated to do it on your own. For the people in the city, this seems to go without saying. However, for the people in the country, get those kids into the city. Give them culture (arts, shows, plays, shopping…Disney on Ice) and let them know that there is a world beyond their small one. I am grateful that my parents and grandparents showed my sister and I culture and cities and most important- how to get around them.