Thurs, Jan 24
... The little things that make life interesting
I was riding the c-train this afternoon when a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother got on the train, which was relatively crowded. The seats were all taken, but there was still plenty of standing room. A girl, about my age, stood to give the older woman her seat. In that same group of eight seats, though, were four men, two of whom were also around my age and were sitting on the outside edge. I was thinking how sad it was that neither of these guys would give up his seat for this woman, when the younger of the two caught my eye. We exchanged a "look," and both began to laugh.
"It's always the girls, isn't it?" she said.
I laughed. "Seems that way."
"That's what you were thinking, isn't it?" she asked. "I could see it in your eye." We laughed again as I nodded affirmatively. "Well, I've got bad news for you. They don't get any better. That doesn't mean you shouldn't still try to hook one, but they don't get better!"
At that point, we stopped talking, and I took out a notebook to begin recording this most unusual dialogue. After a few minutes, she looked at me and stated, "You're writing about me, aren't you?"
I laughed somewhat self-consciously, but freely admitted it. "I've always loved observing and writing about the little things that make life interesting."
"Would you like to know my name?" she asked.
That caught me off-guard, but I replied, "If you want to tell me."
"It's Marika."
She exchanged a few words in a different language--to my untrained ear, it sounded like it could have been Polish--with her mother, and then her mother asked me, "What are you studying?"
"I'm a theatre arts major."
"I bet you're taking a psychology course right now, too," Marika commented. Again, I was a little surprised, but admitted that I am.
We fell silent again for a few minutes,then Marika put her hands to the side of her face, like a pillow, and began to snore, poking fun at the two able-bodied young men who had not stood to offer their seats, both of whom were dozing. "They look tired. Must be working hard," she said, slightly sarcastically. But only slightly.
We laughed and then became quiet once again, until the train reached my stop and I moved towards the door. "Good luck with your studies," she said in parting.
"Thank you. It was nice meeting you."
And yes, this really did happen to me. Every word of it. Life would be so much more dull if it weren't for strangers. :o)
infinite || abyss
posted at 2:04 p.m.
