Gonna start this guy off with a little shout out to one of my biggest fans. You know who you are. I just would like to emphasize the fact that she NEEDS people like me.... like the strombole, to blog. It literally fills her day with excitement, a day that would otherwise be spent studying and reading over tons of icky books trying to learn things. UGH. Who needs that??? Nobody. Everybody needs excitement... suspense... laughter. Fact.
To that end, I bring to you my next blog post, sub-titled "Boston: Chalk-up Another Homeless Person".
Over the past week I've learned that thanks to tons of free time sitting on the train waiting to get to work, I can enjoy some amazing people watching. From the people who don't know how to buy tickets (we've all been there), to the random little children who wander about going from car to car without a parent in sight (yes walking between cars where they could literally just hop right off the train and explode upon hitting the ground..), to the drunk old people who fall over into seats on top of people, there is just so much watching that one can do.. and some many great great stories that can come of it. Today I bring you one of those stories.
So after an exhausting day of work I board the train and try to find a seat as near to the end as possible... I obvi want to reduce my walking time / step distance as much as possible in getting to my car, some call it laziness and I would probably agree. As the train rumbles along I begin to slip in and out of sleep (I usually dream about sleeping on the train, which I know is bizarre... but not gonna lie, it's kinda nice). I get in little pockets of people watching here and there but mostly I'm passed out. Then I wake to hear one of the train conductor dudes talking to this woman in a semi-raised tone, he was saying something like - "Listen just get off at Welsley Farms, go right across the tracks and wait for the inbound train", basically telling the lady she had gotten on the wrong train and she needed to go back to South Station. The dude was frustrated up the wazz and even better for this lady, she didn't speak a word of English. Like none, whatsoever, and she could understand very little of what was being said... even with countless (and I was literally trying to count) hand motions. So apparently she's trying to figure out how to get on a train that was running from a completely different station and she keeps on badgering the conductor (found this info out later on from the gentleman described below). The conductor is peeved because he has to go punch peoples tickets and be the man (they're kinda cool) n what not so he starts fidgeting like hes going to walk away and leave her there at which point you could tell she would literally have broke down crying. Like Superman flying in to rescue Lois Lane, this random professor plaid suit wearing guy shows up and says he knows a little bit of Spanish. So for the next 20 - 30 minutes he is attempting to tell the lady that she needs to exit at Welsley Farms, cross the tracks, and take the inbound train. The conductor is walking back and forth down the train checking tickets and asking if the guy had gotten through to her. This is the point where I begin to laugh, because he passes about a zillion times and it seems like the guy trying to explain things to this lady only knows 4 or 5 Spanish words himself... one that I heard the most: 'ahora' or something like that. It starts getting really crazy and I'm basically on the edge of my seat peering over at these people excited to see how this is going to end (there are also about 50 other people watching). We eventually get to the stop and the lady shakes the dudes hand in one of those 'oh my god you saved my life' kinda ways and she gets off the train. To my astonishment I watch out the window as she proceeds to ask the conductor again how to find this certain station (in Spanish), literally am bent against the glass laughing. He hand motions (214th time) for her to walk around the tracks where she can cross over and wait for the next train. So she nods her head and begins to walk that way. The conductor quickly hops back on, pretty sure he was talking into his walkie talkie saying GO GO GO, and we start moving again. As we're floating away silently into the night I see the lady stop in her tracks and just look around perplexed after only taking 10 or 15 steps. She grabs the arm of a random girl that's walking by and it looks like shes asking the same kind of question shes been asking for the past 40 minutes. Then my last glimpse of her is her just opening her hand and dropping her purse as she stares at our train whisking away. I was giggling like a little kid, I know I should have felt bad... but this lady obviously had had no semblance of a plan when she boarded the train. So now you see why I subtitled this guy "Boston: Chalk-up Another Homeless Person". I think it's pretty safe to assume the lady is either, a. Dead from confusion on the side of some random road in Welsley Farms, b. hitchhiking back to where ever she came from in New York, or c. has adopted the homeless way of life here in Boston, and no doubt I will be seeing her on my train ride back into the city tomorrow morning, singing or playing some kind of instrument with a little bucket to catch whatever alms she may receive. Who knows, but I think she'll make a fine addition to the growing population. Wishing her the best of luck on a speedy walk home.
Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me!
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