People I’ve Seen Whilst Commuting in the Last Couple of Days
Dancing Women at MacArthur, Wednesday after work. Just as the train was pulling out of the station, I saw a chunky Germanic-looking young woman doing a strangely grim-faced pirouette by the top of the stairs. As I was pondering that, the train moved along and I saw at the end of the platform a thirtyish African-American woman sitting on the last of the concrete pods, headphones on, Broadway smile on her face, doing some sort of big finish movement with her arms. It looked like maybe she was practicing her audition for A Chorus Line but didn’t feel like standing up. Or maybe it was some sort of horizontal sun salutation.
Teenage Girls with Terrible Taste in Movies: Last night, in the adjacent set of facing-each-other seats, four girls bound for points beyond the Caldecott Tunnel talked for longer than I could stand (in excess of three minutes) about movies they had recently seen or wanted to see. Singled out for praise were National Treasure and Meet the Fockers. Singled out for disapprobation was Ray because “The acting wasn’t really that great” and “Ray Charles may have been a good musician or something but…” (thankfully, train noise obscured the end of the sentence).
Old School Metrosexual: This morning as I exited the train at Embarcadero, I passed a sixtyish man waiting for an eastbound train. He couldn’t quite conceal his age-appropriate paunch, but still cut quite a figure with his blue beret and uncannily neat moustache. He looked kind of like the Skipper, if he’d killed Mr. Howell, married Mrs. Howell, and then let her dress him for the rest of his days.
Umbrella Man in the Low-Rise Elevator: We arrived at the elevator banks at roughly the same time. He was a few strides ahead of me, so he pushed the “up” button. He had a coffee in one hand and the umbrella in the other, so he used the umbrella to push the button. This would have been a utilitarian choice not meriting an eye-roll if it weren’t for the fact that he gave every appearance of having believed that he had just done something with a flourish. Consequently, my eyes were caused to roll. The elevator arrived, we stepped in. I hit the button for my floor, and instead of setting the damn umbrella down, umbrella guy again used it to press his button – and then again to press the “Close Door” button, an entirely unnecessary action, since the door started closing on its own before he even completed the movement. Three times with the umbrella! In the words of Auric Goldfinger, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action.”* I had seen him outside, tapping the umbrella on the pavement. Animals piss on pavement! He was pushing the elevator buttons with animal piss! I watched the floor numbers light up and meditated on ramming the umbrella up his ass and opening it, but he got out on 3, never knowing how close he’d come to an unsavoury encounter with freelance proctology.
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*Not really a relevant quote in context. Chalk it up as an eye-roll-worthy flourish.
Teenage Girls with Terrible Taste in Movies: Last night, in the adjacent set of facing-each-other seats, four girls bound for points beyond the Caldecott Tunnel talked for longer than I could stand (in excess of three minutes) about movies they had recently seen or wanted to see. Singled out for praise were National Treasure and Meet the Fockers. Singled out for disapprobation was Ray because “The acting wasn’t really that great” and “Ray Charles may have been a good musician or something but…” (thankfully, train noise obscured the end of the sentence).
Old School Metrosexual: This morning as I exited the train at Embarcadero, I passed a sixtyish man waiting for an eastbound train. He couldn’t quite conceal his age-appropriate paunch, but still cut quite a figure with his blue beret and uncannily neat moustache. He looked kind of like the Skipper, if he’d killed Mr. Howell, married Mrs. Howell, and then let her dress him for the rest of his days.
Umbrella Man in the Low-Rise Elevator: We arrived at the elevator banks at roughly the same time. He was a few strides ahead of me, so he pushed the “up” button. He had a coffee in one hand and the umbrella in the other, so he used the umbrella to push the button. This would have been a utilitarian choice not meriting an eye-roll if it weren’t for the fact that he gave every appearance of having believed that he had just done something with a flourish. Consequently, my eyes were caused to roll. The elevator arrived, we stepped in. I hit the button for my floor, and instead of setting the damn umbrella down, umbrella guy again used it to press his button – and then again to press the “Close Door” button, an entirely unnecessary action, since the door started closing on its own before he even completed the movement. Three times with the umbrella! In the words of Auric Goldfinger, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action.”* I had seen him outside, tapping the umbrella on the pavement. Animals piss on pavement! He was pushing the elevator buttons with animal piss! I watched the floor numbers light up and meditated on ramming the umbrella up his ass and opening it, but he got out on 3, never knowing how close he’d come to an unsavoury encounter with freelance proctology.
___________________
*Not really a relevant quote in context. Chalk it up as an eye-roll-worthy flourish.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 2:30 PM
1 Comments:
I saw a woman pirouette, then kick up her heels, while crossing Alcatraz near Adeline the other day. Actually, it was a "J-Pirouette" because she was not in the crosswalk. Quite far from it, actually.
And yeah, that umbrella elevator guy deserves to die.
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