contact has been made

I got on the train today to go home, intent on starting the book about women sailors in the 1800s that Tanya lent me. I was looking forward to the chance to sit down and relax for 15 minutes after a day of finding obscure movies for non-English speaking foreigners, deaf people, and of course the occasional tard. It wouldn’t be a workday without tards!

First of all, the station-announcements were malfunctioning, so every so often, a generically-accented droning man’s voice would announce a series of stops we were nowhere near. This was sort of funny. There would be silence in the car for a second, and then the disembodied voice would start chanting in a monotone:
ALE.WIFE… DA.VIS SQUARE… POR.TER SQUARE…
(he always pauses a tiny bit and draws out each syllable in the stop name.

When I got on the train, I was fortunate enough to get one of the awesome seats– the one right under the a/c vent. Of course after I sat down, a wave of urine scent wafted in my direction followed by a guy who I thought was talking on the phone. He would say a sentence, then pause, then continue. However, we were underground, and there is no phone service down there. Still it was if he was talking to his shrink on the phone. The train was filled with:

The reason Amy and I got along was because I didn’t want her as a friend. She had a nice, voluptuous body, but I didn’t want to be her friend. Her friendship doesn’t interest me…

DOWN.TOWN CROSSING… SOUTH STA.TION… JAY.EFF.KAY YOU.MASS…

People have been giving me a hard time about my weight. I can’t help it that I’m overweight. I used to get yelled at, jeered, mocked, rocks thrown at me… this is why I had to yell at her… but I don’t want Amy as a friend. I have no interest in that at all.

QUIN.ZY A.DAMS… BRAIN.TREE… ALE.WIFE… DAY… THIS IS A BRAIN.TREE TRAIN

I told Amy and she started crying, but I don’t want Amy as a friend. She had to leave the train to start crying, because she’s sensitive. What’s wrong with that? there’s nothing wrong with the fact that I have no interest in having Amy as a friend… I think she likes me… that’s perfectly natural…

KEN.DALL EM EYE TEE… CEN.TRAL

Luckily the dude who had no interest in having Amy as a friend got his smelly butt off at Central, but then the announcer started on a tangent and wouldn’t stop. I got to verbally stop at every stop on the Red Line twice in the space of 2 actual stops! It was kind of amusing. I love it when the voice malfunctions. Certain trains have a woman’s voice that was added as an afterthought to the Charles MGH stop announcement. She says, “MASS EYE AN EAH INFUMERY” with a Boston accent. She used to be way more accented and a lot more staticky, but in recent years they upgraded a bit to a clearer voice that didn’t sound like it had been smoking 3 packs of menthols a day. The other day the voice got stuck and said its stop 3 times in a row. I expected it to start saying “absolutely nothing can go wrong… go wrong… go wrong…”