Things I Hate (#1)

In an attempt to breath life into this blog (and stop bugging my wife because anytime I complain to her all I get is "At least you're not pregnant" or a variation of it) I am going to rant to you, my reader(s?) (I'm looking at you Cheap Ass Film Critic!).


>ahem<


Things I Hate #1


The MBTA. For those of you who do not live in or around Boston this is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or simply 'The T'. I live a ways south of the city so I take the Commuter rail into the city daily for work as I hate driving and parking at the Hospital I work at costs more than keeping my SUV gassed up. Another 'advantage' is that work covers half of the cost of my monthly pass so getting to and from my job costs me relatively little in terms of cash. Having said that, let me tell you that the MBTA blows. It is run by hacks who who don't ride it and don't give half a shit abut the people who do. We are a captive audience.


For example: my train is scheduled to depart South Station at 4:40pm and typically begins boarding between 4:25 and 4:30. How do you think me and the several hundred other people waiting to board feel at 4:50 pm when some dork comes on the PA and informs us that "There will be a slight delay in the boarding of the 4:40 train."? No shit? The train was supposed to leave ten minutes ago and just now they're telling us about a 'slight delay.' Now while I don't usually expect people to be as smart (or as modest (-; ) as I am I think we've got that figured out. Why not give us an ETA or at least be honest and tell us that we're screwed and should try to cram onto the one that leaves at 5:15? No, we get the dork every five minutes repeating that 'slight delay' crap. So when the train boards at 5:05, and departs at 5:10, gets out of the station and sits on the tracks for half an hour while the 5:15 leaves on time and all the other trains pass us by. File this under poor planning, shit happens. Intellectually I can accept this as whenever you have a hundred people and a million moving parts there are 100,000,000 things that can go wrong, this does not change the fact that my 5 year old daughter is sitting in a darkened daycare with an increasingly irritated provider who was supposed to be getting on with her day nearly an hour ago. Long story short: I didn't get home til almost 8pm, my wife had to leave work early to pick up Dharma and I was supremely pissed. (That's angry, not drunk, to my readers across the pond)


Then there's the subway. On the way in I catch the Red Line from South Station to Park Street. This is usually quick and painless. It's at Park Street where the fun begins. The Green Line has 4 branches B, C, D, and the one that I take E. Park Street is where they begin to diverge. Hence after getting the E train door slammed in my face because people have no concept staying out of the way I get to watch two or three trains from EACH OTHER BRANCH leave the station empty. Meanwhile, every three minutes or so the Red Line dumps another twenty or thirty other people off who will join you at the platform waiting for the E train. When that train finally comes it's already full. No kidding either. Nobody gets off the E train at Park Street. Now I grew up playing ice hockey and my high school years saw some football so I usually manage to get onto the train, much to the irritation of many others waiting on the platform. I frankly no longer give a shit, I figure that they're mad because I did what they wanted to do, only I did it better.


So that's my rant for today, I will try to have someting better in the future. I've been thinking about putting up some of my short fiction and hoping for some feedback. Anybody interested?


bjoly