This week I’ve been as prickly as a saguaro cactus. As usual, I blame the weather. The Weather Channel keeps saying it’s will be warm so I dress like it’s going to be warm, only to have a cruel Canadian-sourced wind nearly rip my loose spring clothes off my body.
I’m not the only one on edge. This evening I witnessed a fight on the Red Line between two middle-aged women. It started immediately after the doors closed at South Station. “You keep hitting my with your ELBOW,” I heard one woman say near me. I turned and saw a large black woman with huge helmet hair glaring at an equally large white woman who was knitting with circular needles, who snapped, “Well EXCUSE me. I have my bag in my lap and this is the only way I can DO IT.” “Find a way to do it without HITTING me,” the black woman said, and then stood up and just started bellowing. She must’ve have a hell of a day. I didn’t think the knitter had it in her to pace such insane public rage, but she started yelling in this weird, hysterical whine. When the doors opened at Downtown Crossing – one stop and about 90 seconds later – T personnel was beckoned to intervene. Both woman were promptly taken off the train and everyone sort of shook their heads in a “that was sad but I’m glad I got to see it” sort of way.
While I’m not so revved up that I’d do anything like that… the following things inexplicably peeved me today:
- The guy with glasses and a mini-goatee on the recumbent bike at the gym who was reading Hesse’s Siddhartha. Either you want to read about the spiritual journey of an Indian man, or you want toned hamstrings. Decide.
- CNN’s headline for the article about Winnie the Pooh getting a star on the Walk of fame (“Star wears red shirt, no pants to Walk of Fame ceremony,” here). Because I clicked the link, expecting something a little more scandalous than Pooh.
- The software salesman who twice use the word “automagically” during a demo to my work group. I know it’s old-school programmer jargon, but this is the 21st century. We know your software is not magic.
- The woman walking her dog along the Charles River this morning who thanked her dog for heeding her command to “Stop. Stop. Stop.” eating geese shit. “Thank you,” she said to her jet-black hound, as if he had just given her a stock tip.
