The A** Hole and the Plague Victim

So there are those rides on publicly accessible transportation like airlines and trains that are lovely. You get two seats to yourself. The place is quiet. You can doze if you want to. You can read without being pestered. You can work on your laptop without someone having to wiggle past you to get out or use the restroom.

And there's hellish rides where your squeezed in between a wall and that morbidly obese guy who sweats like a pig and is so SURE you want to hear all about his hemorrhoids while the baby behind you is crying like he's being tortured and his mother is coughing like she's caught the plague. Meanwhile, the lady in front of you is one of those talkers who chats incessantly about nothing interesting in a voice that carries so everyone can hear about her inane conversation with the complete stranger who can offer nothing more than polite nods and non-discouragement in hopes she'll shut up. She doesn't.

This is neither of those. This started out as a quiet, nice ride where I was sure I'd be able to get some sleep in my nice quiet, unpopulated train car only to discover that I'd be joined by the A** Hole the next stop and the Plague Victim the stop after that.

Gary, the super nice, polite and charming conductor stops to ask the gentleman who sat directly behind me for his ticket.

"Can I see your ticket, sir?" asked Gary politely.

"I don't have one."

"You need to purchase a ticket?" asked Gary patiently.

The gentleman shrugs. "Psht. I guess."

"Where are you going?" asked Gary still polite and patient.

"Wherever you are."

"What city are you trying to get to?" asked Gary hopefully and a little less patiently.

"Man. Just give me a minute to get my money out."

Gary moves on to the next passenger, gets her ticket and marks her destination on a little tab to put above her seat. He comes back to the gentleman in seat 21.

"Where are you going?"

"Light rail."

"Are you going to Sacramento?"

"I need a ticket for light rail."

"But what city are you going to?"

"Light rail, man," he says with agitation.

"That's $22," says Gary finally deciding he was selling the guy a ticket to Sacramento regardless of where he decided to depart the train. "May I see your ID please?"

"'Merican."

"Sir, I need to see your ID."

"Youdon't trust me, man. mumblemumble 'Merican," the gentleman in seat 21 says half slurring and half mumbling.

Gary's voice gets a little lower, a little more forceful, a lot less patient, but only slightly less polite. "Sir, I need to see your ID. If you do not show me an ID and stop with the attitude, I'm going to ask you to get off at the next stop."

"This isn't an attitude man. Here. Here's my money. Here's my ID. What else you want, man? Here's my damn wallet."

"Here's your ticket and your change."

"What am I getting off at ----- (next stop)?"

"Your ticket is to Sacramento." Gary has stopped trying to explain anything to the man in seat 21 who either is incapable of understanding, willfully refusing to understand, or simple incapacitated in some way. Gary moves on.

"Where's the rest of my change?! F***in' federal employee stole my money. mumble mumble."

On his next trip through the car to check tickets of the new passengers, Gary brought along the other conductor to point out the man in seat 21 (subtly).

On the next stop a girl gets on who sounds like she has the plague. She's coughing up a storm and as soon as I start to drift off into slumber, she starts up again. And so I give up on another few minutes of shut eye before I get to work.

When I arrive there, it will be time for my first peer mentoring meeting. My peer mentor is the office Vegan. I have no problems with Vegans of course, but it seems that she has had some negative interactions with a number of other employees which I get the vague feeling has something to do with her Vegan-ness. How much of it is the general populace's misunderstanding or disdain for Vegans, and how much is a political/idealist/nutritional superiority given off by her, I have no idea. Since some of the "negative interaction" people are the two guys I'd rather not have to work with, I'm leaning on the former and hope it all works out. She's seemed nice enough to me when I've interacted with her so far.

Now what to ask her? I appreciate her initiative in getting in touch with me and setting up a meeting so quickly, but I haven't been around long enough to really have questions. I guess I can always go with the CPA career path questions since I get the feeling she's working towards one (or I think that's a safe assumption given her educational background).

And now I think I'll attempt to call Katie, but I feel as though I should leave the quiet car first ....though I am curious how Mr Seat 21 will be when we actually get to Sacramento.