It’s 11:47pm on Sunday night. I’m sitting on the train that takes me from Downtown Toronto to Whitby and I’m thinking, “How did I end up here?” Now, I’m not thinking this in any literal sense but rather, I’m contemplating the long list of passengers I’ve encountered on the night’s journey.
I’ll start with the fellow I met on the platform. There is me, back against the wall reading The Walrus and he decides to “light up” beside me....in a public space....under an semi-enclosed train platform. I move down a few meters and watch the train arrive in-front of me. Passenger #2 is standing beside me eating McDonald’s in such a loud and obnoxious way that his fries are actually hitting me! First on the shoulder, then on the foot. At this point I was so exhausted and disillusioned I couldn’t even muster the words to exclaim my astonishment when he hurled the empty container underneath the now parked train.
Once on the train matters got worse. Most of the seats were occupied with the attendants of the night’s Nickelback concert which proved to be the most uncolored, disrespectful people to ride a train with. Let me explain.
First I go to sit in a seat only occupied by a woman’s feet. Rather than moving for the additional passengers, her and her husband lay asleep taking extra space. I finally found a spot and soon realized I was adjacent to a women so intoxicated she was first lying on-top of her friends, and then spread across the train floor. Matters got worse as she proceeded to take a picture of her breasts, suggests posting them on Facebook, finally ending the coup-de-finesse by chastising her 8-year-old son for looking up just the same content on YouTube. Then I finally get to end my night by listening to the syncronized cell-phones of two fans blarring obnoxious music over the train.
