Hey everyone. It’s me, The Friggin’ Cheat, guest-blogging on Ryan’s site today, live from his leather chair.
Like most of you, I’m sick of Ryan not doing his Friday Ramblings anymore. All this mumbo jumbo about some girl I don’t even know. Honestly. If Marzipan pulled any of that crap, Strong Bad and I would have pulled out the compound bow, put her in a soiled crisper drawer, and been done with it. But no, Ryan prefers the Strong Sad approach, which makes sense, since they have roughly the same shape and opacity.
Now, he promised me that if I came over, we could listen to the director’s commentary on his “Herbie Rides Again” DVD, but it looks like it was all a subterfuge. See, he really wanted to put up an entry tonight, but he also wanted to go on a little mission. He had a mean look in his eye that bespoke mischief and mayhem. Naturally, I asked to come along, but he somehow saw footage of my past abetting attempts and left me out of the caper. However, he did ask me to type up some of his notes for the entry he wanted to post tonight. Turns out, he got so angry while compiling these notes that he’s gone all “Death Wish” on the MBTA subway system this evening. So this post might be his last will and testament.
Which is really sad, except Bubs told me he’s got some sort of “liquor and linen” closet, so I am gonna type this up quick and look for contraband as soon as possible. Here I am, about to type up his notes.
Good lord, his handwriting’s impossible to read. He must be a doctor or something. Then again, if he were a doctor, he might actually be able to afford, say, a real computer, as opposed to this Commodore 64 on steroids. This thing makes Strong Bad’s computer look like the W.O.P.R. from the movie “Wargames”, only without the ability to enact World War III. That would friggin’ rule, though. Not as much as I friggin’ rule though. Of course.
OK, on with his notes. (Man, does he always write this much? Why do you people even bother?)
***
In Dante’s “Inferno”, he famously takes us (and his narrator) through the nine circles of Hell. Each circle becomes progressively more intense, with the sinners therein all the more base, the horrors they face that much more horrific with each progression. The lustful are forever blown by stormy winds, the heretics forever burning inside sealed tombs, the rapists condemned to listen to Justin Guarini records. Like I said, the punishments fit the crimes in an ever-ascending order, even as the narrator ever descends.
So it’s only fitting, I feel, to talk about my own personal descent into hell in similar terms. Namely, I’d like to talk about the nine circles of hell awaiting the various sinners I encountered almost daily on the MBTA public subway system here in Boston, Massachusetts.
Now, Dante went are organized his circles around a complex theology that took him years to full articulate. As for myself, I’m going off notes I scribbled in the free space of my Globe on the way home. It’s something I’ve been contemplating writing for a while, and really, the truth might as well come out now, since I’m on the verge of some sort of “Death Wish” rampage. (The Cheat—See? Told you.)
So, without further ado, the circles as I see them are inhabited by:
1) People who try to swipe their passes/insert their tokens, only the turnstile won’t budge. So they swipe again. And again. And again…
Hey, sometimes the cards don’t work. Or the token doesn’t register. I get it. It’s happened to me. But, as a creature of reason, I go to the counter, give them the “what the bloody hell?” look, and they let me through. What I don’t do, unlike you morons, is stand there indignantly as if the turnstile’s going to achieve sentient status, realize its error, then let you through.
At some of the smaller stations here, there are only one or two turnstiles. You’re in my way. I’m pretty sure I can use my ready-to-be-used card as a weapon if you hold me up. Just go to the booth. It’ll be OK.
2) People who wait until they are at the turnstile to look for his/her pass or token.
A slightly worse transgression, and thus in my second circle. It’s one thing if someone’s trying to get through, swipe his or her card, and then get crotched by the unyielding turnstile. That I have some sympathy for, especially if they don’t commit the aforementioned sin and think history won’t repeat itself eighteen times in a row. Which it will. So go to the booth. Before I remove your ability to breed.
But no, these people in Circle 2 will walk, often briskly, to the turnstile, stop on a dime, and then rummage through their pockets/wallets/purses/pet bengal tigers for their ticket to ride. Amazingly enough, they only do this during rush hour. The commuter rail from northern Massachussetts stops right at the subway stop I get on in the morning. Each of the 12 entrance turnstiles is packed if you arrive at the wrong time. And inevitably, 1 or 2 of these turnstiles are slowed up by idiots who can’t find their pass or token. It’s like when people don’t have exact change in the “Exact Change” lane at a toll. Only in this case, you can’t rear-end them. Well, you can, but, um, why would you want to?
3) People whom, when walking along the platform, are unsure of their way, and compensate by walking like a drunken coed in Cancun.
This type of person can be found getting off a train, looking for either the connecting line or the best way out. This type of person is either a tourist, profoundly stupid, or goes to Bunker Hill Community College. This person gets schizophrenic flashes of insight as to the best course of action, but can’t quite settle on the proper course of ambulating. As such, they zig-zag, leaving a trail, that if dashed after the fact, would leave those “Family Circus” cartoons in shame.
Thing is, this type of walking pattern would be sort of funny if they didn’t do it in such a way that prevents you from getting around them. They anticipate your every move. They are like idiot savants in this regard, with an emphasis on the “idiot” part. You think they are going right, so you veer left. But nooo…maybe left is the way to Downtown Crossing. Fine, you think, I’ll go right, but two tenths of a second after they have decided that maybe Macy’s is left after all. There’s no hope for you. Citizen Zig Zag is your daddy now. Bend over. Pray he has lube.
4) People who let their kids turn the car into their personal jungle gym.
Hey look, I’m supportive. I know that after the ’84 Olympics, and with it they heyday Mitch Gaylord and that dude from “Gymkata”, long behind us, that we need to regain our superiority in the world of gymnastics. But I have to also say that the Green Line probably isn’t the best training facility for such a noble endeavor.
I’m not blaming the kids in this case. Kids, like girls, just wanna have fun. And I know some kids can be girls too, but um, just go with me on this one. They wanna jump around. They don’t know the concept of “behaving in public” or, by all accounts I’ve seen, “behaving in any way, shape, or form”. Them being a bunch of spazzes is not their inherent fault. It’s the fault of the same people with whom the fault lies when their son takes out my patella playing “Tag” between Charles MGH and Park Street: the parents.
Look, parents (I use the term loosely here…the fact that you knocked her up doesn’t make you a dad, and the fact you spit it out don’t make you no mommy), if you don’t wanna leash them in to avoid crippling me, that’s one thing. But do it for the fact that there are some crazy-ass people riding the train. NYC’s got crazier by far, but they are plenty crazy enough here that you shouldn’t think about not having little Timmy in your lap at all times. Look, bring a stun gun if you have to. Maybe a tazer. Load up a napkin with some ether. Anything. Keep them away from “Guy at the End of the Car Who Smiles Way Too Much For a Guy Who Hasn’t Shaved Since The Reagan Administration”. That’s all I’m asking.
5) People who manage to consume the entire aisle with their personage once inside the train.
Here’s the thing. It’s not like Boston’s filled with a bunch of fat asses that seek to choke up the pathways of the MBTA subway service. Because in general, they are the ones sitting down taking up three seats, one of which simply with a sandwich. But I digress. Nominally, if one person is standing up in between the two rows of seats, it shouldn’t be next to impossible for me to move further in the car without me putting them through a window due to commuter rage.
And yet, so often it is.
Two types of people sit in this circle. Firstly we have the “Center of Gravity” people. These are the people who feel that spreading their legs as far apart as possible will ensure that they will not fall down while the car is moving. A sound theory, only they spread their legs perpendicular instead of parallel to the rows and as such achieve nothing except allowing me the perfect opportunity to kick them in the crotch. Which I do. In my mind. Over. And over. Like John Cougar Mellencamp says, it hurts so good.
The second type of person is the “Bag Bitch”: those people who think it’s perfectly fine to wear their backpacks/duffel bags/entire contents of an Eastern Mountain Clothing store on their backs, while standing at a 45 degree angle, with the “CoG” stance employed. Yours truly puts his bag between his legs while riding the car, because the subway is not meant to hold a carful of Quasimodo wannabes. To top it off, if they whack you with their bag, they give YOU the evil eye, like you just took a dump on their firstborn. Honestly, ooooh. Blood…starting to…rise…
6) People who sit when elderly or others clearly in need of a seat are standing.
Never fails. I go to work, like most people, around 8 am, and leave, like most people, between 5:30-6:30 pm. Prime rush hour times. It’s busy on the highway, it’s busy on the subway. But at least on the highway, y’all are sitting in your cars. If you get a seat on the subway during rush hour, well, buy a lottery ticket, because someone on High really likes you that day.
But people rush to get these seats like their back in the Great Depression looking for the last loaf of bread that week in the store. It’s just a massive attack, and not in a cool, British trip-hop band sort of way. No, people are out for blood, they want a seat, and they don’t care how many old people they have to knock down on their replacement hips to get it.
And if only people rushed to get a seat (understandable…lazy, but understandable), saw that an elderly person didn’t have a seat, and then gave up said seat so this elderly person could sit…but no. They will actual look up, see people who clearly need seats more than them, and look back down at their newspaper. I want to take that newspaper, roll it up real tight, shove it up their nose, and pull it out of their ears. Honestly.
And here’s the part where I rail against women, so if that bugs you, skip to #7. Women who ride subway cars are the best case against feminism in the History of Man. For twenty three hours and eighteen minutes a day, these feminists rail about equality, and their lack of respect, and bladdy blah, and then, for the 48 minutes the are on the train each day, they turn into the most helpless creatures ever who suddenly needs seats…so they can re-apply makeup and read magazines. They need that seat and will not be denied. Forget equality; women need to sit more than men do, damnit! All the while Grandpa is holding on for dear life as the train careens into Central Square. Jesus. Where’s my gun?
Are we that lazy that we can’t stand…STAND for Christ’s sake, for a little while? No one’s asking you to get off the subway and sprint to work. If you’re under 30, on a crowded subway, and sitting, you better have a freakin’ bear claw around your shin and on your way to Mass General Hospital. Yeesh.
And speaking of lazy, the inhabitants of Circle 7 are:
7) People who stand still on the left side of the escalator.
Here is an instance where technology should make life easier, but instead only provides an opportunity for people to not get the point.
A lot of people use escalators because they can’t or won’t walk up stairs. Hey, that’s fine, that’s what escalators are for. But some people obviously also use them to walk up faster and more efficiently. I’m generally cutting corners in the morning to get to work, so I like to climb and descend escalators to shave a bit of time off my commute, decrease my chances of missing a train, and get a little cardio work out in. And so God in His infinite wisdom said, “Let their be two sides to the escalator: one for those who wish to not actually employ their muscles to move, and those who wish to not feel like a small bug caught in the cogs of modernity.”
And yet…and yet people for some reason don’t get the concept. Maybe they are dyslexic. Maybe they are ignorant. What I do know is that they are in my freakin’ way. Unnecessarily. It’s like “Dirty Dancing”: I stay out of their dance space, why can’t they just stay out of mine? Nobody puts Ryan in the corner, and no one should put me behind someone on the left when I am moving.
There are a few primary groups of offenders. There’s the “we’re a family from a small city travelling in a gpack and so form an impenetrable blob making Ryan miss his train” group. There’s the “we think we’re a tough group of teenagers so we intentionally block up the aisle, accusing you of being racist if you dare ask to pass us by” group. There’s the “we’re a couple so much in love that we can’t bear to be separated by steps, because that would imply an imbalance in our relationship” group. There’s the “just can’t be bothered to acknowledge that everything in the world doesn’t exist to bend to my every whim and desire” class as well, solo artists who make you shuffle back and forth between the left and right lanes like you’re suddenly in “Pole Position”. I feel a bit like Samuel Jackson in “A Time To Kill” when I encounter these people: “Yes, they deserve to die, and I hope they burn in hell!”
8) People who suddenly go into a bullet-time world of one when getting on or off the subway car.
The one consistent comment I get when people visit me in Boston is a variation on the phrase, “Man, you people move FAST around here!” And it’s true. We walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, drink fast. We do everything at 78 RPM.
Except board or deboard a subway car. At that precise moment, we suddenly enter The Matrix, moving at ridiculously slow speeds, speeds you didn’t think were even possible without the utmost muscular control. It’s like a Tai Chi entrance to mass transit. Simply unbelievable.
People hustle down the stairs. People hustle through the turnstile (assuming their sorry asses didn’t wait until the last second to find their pass). They hustle to the loading platform, anxious to find the perfect spot to board. They hastily adjust their position in relation to the doors as the train pulls in. And then, for some reason, the whole thing turns into a scene from “The Six Million Dollar Man”.
Never fails. To coin a phrase from the Commander, people start to move with the approximate speed of real-time geology. Continental drift doesn’t move this slowly. I can’t explain the phenomenon. But you know how in the first “Spider-Man” movie, Peter Parker sees that fist just sorta inching towards him? That’s how I feel trying to board or deboard the subway.
I keep waiting to see Agent Smith on the platform: “Good morning, Mr. McGee. We’ve…been expecting you.” Hasn’t happened yet. But I’m still on the lookout.
Then again, to be fair, sometimes there’s a reason why it’s so slow getting on or off the train. And that reason is Circle 9. The innermost circle of our survey. The scourge of scourges as I traverse the storied streets of Boston day in, day out. Those whom above all else shall suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous come-uppance in the after life:
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9) People who just stand in the doorway, preventing those who want to get on or off an unblocked path.
See, this shit’s just plain ass ignorant. (Man, I need to watch less “Chappelle Show” before blogging.)
It’s one thing to be caught unawares. Like, you’re near a door, for whatever reason, you pull into a stop, go, “Oh, I’m in the way” and seek to move. Some people do that. And those people will get rewards such as “getting into Heaven” and “orgasms”. But there are those who reach such a point, see their place in the great Circle of Life, and clearly say to themselves, “Man, tough sh#t for them,” and keep standing there as people bottleneck both in and out of the train.
If they’re truly into their role, they’ll pull a little bit of Circle 5 into their act, wearing a backpack while in the doorway while taking up most available space. On top of that, they’ll have their iPod blaring so that can’t hear your pleas to “move the f@ck out of the way so I can finally go home”. So, again, you have to employ physical contact to get past them. They get mad cuz Their Awesomeness has been touched, and you’re hoping that “complete stupidity, lack of decorum, and utter absence of human decency” can’t be transmitted through the world’s biggest fanny pack that you just grazed against.
There’s just something so fundamentally haughty about these people that I had to place them as the absolute worst people on this list. They’ve got they traits of almost everyone else on this list, plus an arrogant desire to be seen and identified as the icing on the cake. All I have to say to these people is: if you were actually that freakin’ important, you could afford to actually drive to work, so drop the act. No one likes you. You are miserable people who make other people miserable who make other people miserable when they get home. You start a domino effect of hate. You’re killing this country. You’re a scourge to democracy. You making the Founding Fathers weep.
And this taxpayer’s had enough. The cycle must stop here. And it starts with me. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a train to catch.
***
Whew. The Cheat here again. Ryan’s got a lot of anger management issues to work through. I hope he was kidding about going all Charles Bronson on everyone. I mean, “stealing Jumbles” is one thing, but “committing mass homicide” is another.
Oh well, can’t be bothered. Bubs was right; I found the mother lode. And after all that typing, I sure deserve a treat. So if you don’t mind, I’ma gonna go hang with my favorite friend for the evening. Don’t wait up for me.
