Buses and trains

A while back I estimated that I had spent about half a year of my life riding a train or bus. Whether this was heading off to high school or college or going out that's half a year in some (typically ridiculously overcrowded) piece of metal. There's something about public transport. And it's not just the awesome fact that it's green. It's just so PUBLIC! You have random people sitting next to you falling asleep on your shoulder. You have buskers laying down some phat beats (the Ukelele Lady in Sydney was my favorite).

We share these spaces with people we might not have anything in common with. For me, this was the most interesting aspect as my life at the time seemed boring - surely the days in the lives of these people were filled with more to write home about. When commuting to the lab, dressed in my daggy clothes, I wondered what all those guys in their suits did during the day. I was also curious when confronted with an emaciated and intoxicated thirty year old woman one day. Her ears were bleeding, having botched an attempt to pierce her ears. Earrings in hand, she asked me if I could help her put them on for her. I thought about it for a while (when I tell people of this story they are surprised that the thought of helping her even crossed my mind) but eventually declined in as polite a way as I could.

A year or so later I found myself riding a train home sometime after midnight, having been socializing with some friends from grad school that evening (a pretty rare event for me, being a rather quiet soul). My section of the carriage was populated with precisely two people: myself and a man sitting some five rows in front of me. Buried in a novel (from memory it was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), I was startled when the man was standing right next to me, requesting that he use my cellphone to make an urgent call. I told the man no, and that he could get off at the next stop and use the payphone. He asked again. Same answer. After a further request I caved and handed my phone to the man, who promptly sat down beside me. He dialed a number, but didn't seem at all anxious as one might be in an urgent situation. Talking in some African language, he began a seemingly friendly conversation, punctuated with fits of laughter. I didn't need a babelfish in my ear to tell that it seemed like he just wanted to chat with an old friend. Some emergency, huh? I glanced at him but he was too absorbed in his conversation to acknowledge my existence. Some minutes later I asked him if he could wrap it up - and he held his hand out and said he'd only be a couple minutes more. After what seemed like an eternity I asked him again and he hung up and pressed a few buttons. I alighted a couple stops later, staggered home, and collapsed in my bed. Two weeks later I got my phone bill. Everything was normal except for a 20 min call to Sierra Leone. Oh, and he'd also deleted the call record. Jerk. As an epilogue, after a chemistry departmental party a month later, I rode the train home but was apparently tired enough to miss my stop. Getting off at Hornsby, I looked for a train in the opposite direction but it was so late that only buses were running. So I lined up at the bus stop. After some minutes a man  tapped me on the back and asked if I could lend him my phone for an emergency call. I turn around and there he was. And you can guess my answer to his question.