2006-11-24

In which I talk about my Black Friday commute�

I worked today and my commute this afternoon was icky.

The train wasn�t really crowded. It was on-time. I got a whole seat to myself. There was nothing specifically wrong with my fellow commuters. But the ride just felt icky.

The people on the train this afternoon were, for the most part, not normal commuters. There were families with kids and strollers coming back from spending a day in the city. There were overly-testosteroned Bruins� fans returning from the game. There were lots of shoppers with lots and lots of bags.

But there was nothing wrong with them (although the Bruins� fans in front of me could have turned it down a notch). They weren�t doing anything particularly annoying, like talking loudly on their cell phones or ignoring their screaming/crying kids or hitting you with their shopping bags as they pass by or complaining loudly about the surcharge for buying tickets on the train. If they were doing these things, I would understand my icky feeling. But they weren�t.

I think what bothered me was that they just weren�t normal commuters. Normal commuters are generally quiet. They read, knit, sleep or work on their computers. These people were not so quietly studious. They weren�t obnoxious, but they weren�t beaten down like everyone else always seems to be. I was trying to read and decompress. But everyone else didn�t need to decompress because they didn�t compress to begin with.

I felt a little icky because I was not �in sync� with my fellow travelers. I think by Monday everyone will be back to work and that will solve my icky felling. If that doesn�t work, I could always try forming a boy band.