Nothing can make a bunch of upper-middle-class white people nervous like making them take a ride on the Subway.
Each weekday morning I rise before the sun, pull myself together, and highttail it to the local train station where I catch a 7:16 regional rail train to the City of Brotherly Love. It's a nice ride. I can't complain. Much safer than allowing me to control a potentially deadly weapon (my car) in rush-hour traffic.
The people who take my train mostly are affluent white folk over the age of 40 who need their big-city, white-collar salaries to pay for their manicured suburban lifestyles. They wear freshly dry-cleaned suits and carry thick, Italian leather briefcases; they wear 3-carat diamond boulders on their important fingers and clickity click on their laptops and read the Inquirer on their ride to work on the train.
Mostly. I mean, you have your commuting students, your blue-collar laborers, and your under 35-ers, but we're the minority. Oh, you have your occasional people of color riding the train, too, who range from students to high-powered business folk. They're the minority (go figure) too, 'cause the suburbs I come from are pretty much white-toast places. And it's the white people I'm gonna talk about.
This morning, two stops from center city, our comfy commute was interrupted by an announcement that there was "police activity" in the regional rail tunnels (that's public-transport-speak for bomb threat) and that we'd all be getting off the train at Fern Rock where we'd have to take the subway the rest of the way to the city.
Fern Rock sounds like a lovely place, doesn't it? You're thinking of a mossy forest floor and a gray boulder with velvety ferns growing around it, perhaps next to an idyllic stream or creek. You're close, but with less moss and more pawn shops.
But either way, no big shit, beause none of us pampered commuters were going to have to leave the train station, just switch over to the subway.
Being that I work in a section of the city too ghetto to be serviced directly by the suburban Regional Rail lines, I have to take a subway every morning anyway. So the smell of human waste, the paralyzing humidity, and the people who aren't "just like me" riding on the same vehicle as I am are de rigeur. I just take shallow breaths and put a miserable look on my face (so really I just keep my normal look) like everybody else. No big whoop.
But you should have heard the pissing and moaning from the white folks on the train. Mind you, they were completely unconcerned that there was a bomb threat in the tunnel our train usually goes through. They were up in arms that they were expected to take the subway.
"THE SUBWAY!?!? We'll all get raped and robbed." (A fake-redheaded woman in her 60s with 10 pounds of yellow-gold and diamond jewelry on and all leopard-print coordinating accessories, even her shoes)
"I'd rather take my chances with the bomb than ride in a train with the people who take the subway." (A 40-something man in a three-piece pinstriped suit: pocket square, cufflinks, and permanent sneer included)
"I'm not getting off this train. We'll get shot walking from here to the subway station." (A 50-something frizzy-haired blond with inch-long acrylic nails and a 25-year-old's breasts, courtesy of her plastic surgeon)
And these comments were made out loud. Sometimes even directly to other commuters. Because these people are that sheltered and that prejudiced. As if the smell of urine in the subway station wasn't doing enough of a job on me, these people made me want to barf.
Despite their whining, they all got on the subway anyway, didn't they. And they all got to work safely, didn't they.
And the people who usually take the subway every morning who got on the train at the subsequent stops were really nice to them and offered them directions and help determining which stop to get off at, didn't they. Yes. They did.
If I was one of the people bitching about the subway and the "kind of people" who ride it, I'd hang my head in shame. Shame! But the same people who minutes earlier were stereotyping and name-calling took the advice and help of the subway regulars without a single grain of irony.
Me? I still got to work, close to on time, and without being bombed on the way (which I appreciated), just like the complainers did. Only I wasn't a raging asshole on the way.
Looking for a carpool: [email protected]
Each weekday morning I rise before the sun, pull myself together, and highttail it to the local train station where I catch a 7:16 regional rail train to the City of Brotherly Love. It's a nice ride. I can't complain. Much safer than allowing me to control a potentially deadly weapon (my car) in rush-hour traffic.
The people who take my train mostly are affluent white folk over the age of 40 who need their big-city, white-collar salaries to pay for their manicured suburban lifestyles. They wear freshly dry-cleaned suits and carry thick, Italian leather briefcases; they wear 3-carat diamond boulders on their important fingers and clickity click on their laptops and read the Inquirer on their ride to work on the train.
Mostly. I mean, you have your commuting students, your blue-collar laborers, and your under 35-ers, but we're the minority. Oh, you have your occasional people of color riding the train, too, who range from students to high-powered business folk. They're the minority (go figure) too, 'cause the suburbs I come from are pretty much white-toast places. And it's the white people I'm gonna talk about.
This morning, two stops from center city, our comfy commute was interrupted by an announcement that there was "police activity" in the regional rail tunnels (that's public-transport-speak for bomb threat) and that we'd all be getting off the train at Fern Rock where we'd have to take the subway the rest of the way to the city.
Fern Rock sounds like a lovely place, doesn't it? You're thinking of a mossy forest floor and a gray boulder with velvety ferns growing around it, perhaps next to an idyllic stream or creek. You're close, but with less moss and more pawn shops.
But either way, no big shit, beause none of us pampered commuters were going to have to leave the train station, just switch over to the subway.
Being that I work in a section of the city too ghetto to be serviced directly by the suburban Regional Rail lines, I have to take a subway every morning anyway. So the smell of human waste, the paralyzing humidity, and the people who aren't "just like me" riding on the same vehicle as I am are de rigeur. I just take shallow breaths and put a miserable look on my face (so really I just keep my normal look) like everybody else. No big whoop.
But you should have heard the pissing and moaning from the white folks on the train. Mind you, they were completely unconcerned that there was a bomb threat in the tunnel our train usually goes through. They were up in arms that they were expected to take the subway.
"THE SUBWAY!?!? We'll all get raped and robbed." (A fake-redheaded woman in her 60s with 10 pounds of yellow-gold and diamond jewelry on and all leopard-print coordinating accessories, even her shoes)
"
"I'm not getting off this train. We'll get shot walking from here to the subway station." (A 50-something frizzy-haired blond with inch-long acrylic nails and a 25-year-old's breasts, courtesy of her plastic surgeon)
And these comments were made out loud. Sometimes even directly to other commuters. Because these people are that sheltered and that prejudiced. As if the smell of urine in the subway station wasn't doing enough of a job on me, these people made me want to barf.
Despite their whining, they all got on the subway anyway, didn't they. And they all got to work safely, didn't they.
And the people who usually take the subway every morning who got on the train at the subsequent stops were really nice to them and offered them directions and help determining which stop to get off at, didn't they. Yes. They did.
If I was one of the people bitching about the subway and the "kind of people" who ride it, I'd hang my head in shame. Shame! But the same people who minutes earlier were stereotyping and name-calling took the advice and help of the subway regulars without a single grain of irony.
Me? I still got to work, close to on time, and without being bombed on the way (which I appreciated), just like the complainers did. Only I wasn't a raging asshole on the way.
Looking for a carpool: [email protected]
