Freaks (or Freakshows?) on the Subway

Consider this my official prediction: one day I'm going to be in trouble, and I mean big trouble, for too closely observing people in public. I'm not talking about a quick glance at that woman who's so thin her bones protrude, or sneaking a peek at that guy who's spitting chewing tobacco into an empty Pepsi bottle. (Really though, man, it's 2010, not 1910!)

No, I'm talking about staring. Really staring, gazing intently at someone's odd behavior or dress, sniffing their unusual scent (gross, right?) and eavesdropping on their cellphone conversations. I'd hesitate to say that I'm nosey-- even though I am-- but rather curious. Exceptionally curious. Like "Curious George was my role model growing up" curious.

Considering this is one of my most prominent personality traits, it makes my subway commute to and from work interesting and, yes, I'll say it, the best part of my day. Not only do I get to sit back and relax while someone ELSE drives me around, I get to encounter people from all walks of life that I otherwise don't bump into. What a better place than a major city for me to fulfill my thirst for observation?

Today in particular proved especially interesting on the subway. Actually, this week has been interesting in regards to transportation all around for me. Let me explain.

I hopped on the train at my normal stop, ready to do my daily reading on my Blackberry. After I finished a quick phone conversation, a flash of color in my peripheral vision caught my attention. Apparently I had sat next to a woman who sported a wild Hawaiian print silk shirt, dandruff covered black pants and a stretchy visor, the tacky kind only a grandmother wears. Sure, she was quite a piece of eye candy to a girl like me who's interested in the oddities of life, but really she didn't appear to be anything special.

It wasn't until I realized that my iPod was dead and that I'd have to rely on other forms of amusement that I noticed that she was reading. Reading to herself and aloud. Now what, you might ask, was so interesting about her reading? Everyone reads on the train to work, you might think.

She was reading erotic literature. Yep, right there, right next to me, a girl sitting close enough to see what she was reading. As she muttered to herself about how Clyde groped Charles so tenderly that Charles... ok, enough... I won't go further, my stomach sunk and I feared that I'd get sick all over her.

Before I knew it, this woman had finished reading her story. She was already at another webpage where she was selecting criteria in an erotic literature search engine so she could amuse herself with another story. Apparently her fetish is man-on-man first person POV. I'll admit that's way more than I'd ever want to know about someone I'm simply watching from a (slight) distance.

Anyway, I'm realizing that the more I seek out these unique people in my travels, the more that I find. Yesterday while being attacked by miserable humidity, I stepped into a frigid cab in order to go on an errand for work.

"Welcome to my cab," the cabbie exclaimed.

"Thanks," I responded.

"I hope you like the music that I've selected for you," he continued.

"Yes, it's fine, thank you," I said, further proceeding with my destination's address.

"I want to tell you about something that not everyone knows," he began, as I half-tuned him out. "The most important thing in this world is money. Money. The second most important thing is school. And everything after school and even INCLUDING school costs money!"

I attempted to tune him out, but realize the impossibility of this task as he asked me questions of opinion following each of his statements.

"But did you know," he questioned, "that the President of the United States of America will help you out with all of this money? Did you know that if you pick up any phone, dial zero, say 'Operator, I want to be connected to the President of The United States of America,' she'll put you through to a White House operator, operator number nine, and you can tell this person that you want to petition for the jubilee status. Do you know what the jubilee status is?"

"Um, no, sir, I don't know what the Jubilee Status is."

"Well 18 million people in Massachusetts are ahead of you! They already petitioned! And they're having all of their bills and college loans and rent paid for by President Obama! You can look it up! We're all entitled to it under The Constitution. Look it up, article 3C-L3!"

I couldn't wait to jump out of his car. Really, I almost considered having him pull over and letting me out early, only so I could brave a walk in the heat to get rid of this crazy man. But I made it safely to my destination (surprisingly, he was an incredibly safe driver) and forgot about him for a couple minutes. That is, until I made it back to my desk and decided to look up the article number that he had stated.

Nothing. Of course nothing. There's no such thing as Jubilee Status.

But what if, I thought, there really is something called the Jubilee Status in our country, and maybe I had just written down the numbers incorrectly? So of course, being the gullible and curious person that I am, I googled "Jubilee Status." To my disbelief, I came across a blog, similar to my own, where someone else had chronicled their adventures with brown cab #9. Not only that, but tons of people afterward commented on the post, relaying similar tales of this crazy man who they unexpectantly encountered on trips to the airport or City Hall. See http://tellhimfred.com/2008/01/11/welcome-to-crazy-town-population-your-cab-driver/#comment-24167 for the post and a more accurate description than I could ever give. (It's funny, I almost promise.)


So yes, this cab driver was insane. As one woman described him, he's "batshit crazy." That very well might be the case. But, nonetheless, he made my ride an adventure unlike any other I've ever had in this city. And the woman from this morning? Same thing. As weird and sick of an experience as that was, it entertained me and provided me with a conversation started at the very least. I think I'm learning to appreciate the nutty people in life and realize that, just like the woman's shirt, they bring a little color and spice to our lives.


XOXO,
R.

A Commentary on Our Generation

It's true: my job isn't very intellectually stimulating. Sure, I have days where I'm crazed, days where I don't know which task to tackle first. All in all, though, as my friends so lovingly joke, I'm someone's "bitch." (Sorry to all you feminists out there, but it's true.) I support someone else, an MD who runs research labs that have discovered countless genes-- discoveries that have already saved some labs and will hopefully save many more in the future. Did I go to a highly-recognized school to support another person? No. Did my family have to shell out well over $200,000 just so that I could earn my meager salary that pays the rent but doesn't allow for a ton of disposable income? Nope, definitely not.

That said, I'm happy. Really, I am. OK, I know that doesn't sound convincing, but you just have to take my word for it. On a miserably humid day like today, I'm thankful that I don't believe in that I'm not drenched in sweat chasing four year olds through a sprinkler at camp like I used to back in the day. (I'm more grateful that I'm not cleaning up after their accidents post-sprinkler on any day.) In fact, I'm sitting here with a smile on my face (on the inside at least) because I'm covered in goosebumps from the chill of my office's air conditioning. And on days like this, believe me, it feels amazing to be inside a freezing high-rise in my jail-like cubicle; my small salary feels worthwhile. Plus, I work for a great company and with and for great people, so really, who am I to complain?

Overall, though, I am grateful. My job can feel "below me" at times and it for sure isn't comfortable getting myself out of bed and into the unpleasant weather, only to sit at my desk to schedule someone else's appointments and apply for his multi-million dollar grants. But each and every time that I feel like this flat out sucks (aint no classier way to say it, honestly) I remind myself-- thankfully I'm not at home. I also try to remind myself that maybe in some indirect way I'm helping others-- if I schedule my boss's time to take a breath or eat a bite of sandwich, I'm helping to manage his time so he can save lives.

Now, please understand, I'm not knocking any of my friends who are at home and living with their parents. I understand that people have loans to pay and that many people can't get jobs during these unfortunate times. I mean, according to the most recent estimates, almost 10% of the American population can't get a job. That's nothing to laugh at. As they say, tough times call for tough measures, and those measures might include moving back into a childhood home with a mom and dad who insist on attaching a GPS armband to their kid to monitor their whereabouts at all times.

What I don't respect, though, are the people who could find themselves financially capable of moving out and being on their own, but are unwilling to take any job that they consider to be in that "below them" range. I have plenty of friends like that-- friends who won't take a job that pays a decent salary because they don't immediately sense any upward mobility coming from that position.

As I rode the subway this morning-- my ultimate destination after Starbucks being this cubicle, of course-- I skimmed The New York Times as I always do. Now I wasn't actively thinking about this whole having a job vs. not having a job concept, but I think it's always in the back of my mind during my commutes. Anyway, one of the top ten articles, American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/economy/07generation.html?_r=1&hp. The article essentially profiles a guy who's a couple of years older than me who sits home unemployed day after day. He turned down a job that offered him a $40,000 salary, feeling it would fail to lead him in a worthwhile direction and that the pay was too low. Meanwhile, his parents support him: they pay his rent, his cellphone bills and allow him send out only four or five resumes per week. (They're, of course, not enablers or anything.)

Let me tell you that when I was looking for work, I sent in close to fifty resumes per day. I did anything that I could to land a job. When I was looking to switch from one job that was too unbearable to the next, I was even willing to take a pay cut. A pay cut! Anything to maintain my independence. I would have rather sat and answered phones all day (with memories of my undergraduate career lurking in the background) just to be able to pay my own way. No job, I realized, is below me, and it shames me to think that so many of my peers are willing to mooch off their parents-- the same parents who have already supported them for well over twenty years-- just because they don't want to do something that, to them, feels degrading.

I don't know much about the business world, but I do know this: it looks much better to be doing a job like mine than to be sitting home and watching TV all day. No employer wants to know that a candidate spent the past sixteen months watching Hoarders and The Bachelor on DVR and Seinfeld on syndication. Getting up and going to work every day-- whether it's working construction or as an investment banker or scrubbing filthy toilets-- is a much more valuable use of your time.

So, to the people of my generation, I have to say that I almost plead with you: get up and do something. Prove your intelligence and your good work ethic, and that The New York Times has been portraying us incorrectly. And for the love of God, drop that Chipotle burrito, get off your parents' couch, erase that higher-than-though attitude from your mind, and work hard like the rest of us. Our grandparents, great-grandparents, even our parents did it, and there's no reason we shouldn't.


XOXO,
R.

PS: For more on how others perceive members of our generation, please see this article from a May edition of the New York Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30fob-wwln-t.html. Again, another reason to prove everyone wrong.