[URBAN NOTE] The TTC and Me
Sep. 13th, 2004 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldAs I was leaving work today via the Eglinton station, I noticed a great backlog of people waiting to get through the subway. It turned out that the TTC, in its infinite wisdom, decided to send people to service the entry gates at rush hour, and also conveniently arranged to have only one person attending the gates. I managed to get onto my subway just before it left the station, but then, it was hotter and more humid inside the car than I'd experienced before. The cool clean air of Yonge Street was a relief.
That made me think of Thursday morning, when I got up bright and early to go to work. It was raining very heavily, so I took my nice Queen's umbrella. And I waited. I waited after the first streetcar passed me by. I waited after the second streetcar passed me by, and at least one person other than myself began cursing. I waited for the third streetcar, and when I noticed that the driver could not take me on I sneaked onto the car via a back door. At this interval, I noticed that one spoke of my nice Queen's Umbrella was now poking through the fabric.
As a visitor, or as someone without deadlines, I used to be unquestioningly happy with the TTC--the novelty of mass transit, you see. This new emotion, perhaps, indicates my naturalization.
Sometimes, I think that it would be nice to look to Northern Ireland, where the predominant Scottish Protestant and Irish Catholic components of my ancestral identity have been given the finest sheen and the sharpest points by the so concerned locals, and pick up the fine old pan-Celtic habit of kneecapping.
Sometimes.
I jest. Really. I do.
That made me think of Thursday morning, when I got up bright and early to go to work. It was raining very heavily, so I took my nice Queen's umbrella. And I waited. I waited after the first streetcar passed me by. I waited after the second streetcar passed me by, and at least one person other than myself began cursing. I waited for the third streetcar, and when I noticed that the driver could not take me on I sneaked onto the car via a back door. At this interval, I noticed that one spoke of my nice Queen's Umbrella was now poking through the fabric.
As a visitor, or as someone without deadlines, I used to be unquestioningly happy with the TTC--the novelty of mass transit, you see. This new emotion, perhaps, indicates my naturalization.
Sometimes, I think that it would be nice to look to Northern Ireland, where the predominant Scottish Protestant and Irish Catholic components of my ancestral identity have been given the finest sheen and the sharpest points by the so concerned locals, and pick up the fine old pan-Celtic habit of kneecapping.
Sometimes.
I jest. Really. I do.
