The Gong Impression

It happened again.

I was riding the subway into the city on a busy Saturday afternoon. The train car was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder, eager to get out and enjoy the early spring weather. I was squeezed in close to the exit door between a group of gum-chomping middle schoolers and a pack of college-age asian women.

As we passed through central square, I leaned back to let a few folks off of the train.

The middle schoolers were chatting about which shoes they wanted to buy. I swallowed hard to try and purge the imagery of their bony chicken legs crammed into some useless piece of gaudy leather. They were clearly going all the way into the city. Great.

The train creeped onward- almost as if weighed down by the crowd inside. We have sent men to the moon, invented computers that can fit inside of the palm of our hands, and replicated the human genome, but for some reason we cannot get a train to move any quicker than a grocery store scooter cart. The asians were laughing loudly about something and speaking in a language I did not understand. The train was started to slow as it approached the next stop.

As the car slowed to a halt, I looked through the window to see the words "Kendall/MIT". Whew. I would have to deal with the pre-teens for a few more stops, but the incoherent laughing from the Asian crew was over. I stepped to the side to allow them to step out and return to the MIT campus.

But they didn't move.

I froze. The doors were about to close and they hadn't taken a step to the exit. I did a double take just to make sure that we were at the MIT stop. We were. I shot a glance at the group as if to ask "Uhh. Hello? Asians? We're at your stop". They met me with a blank stare.

I stepped back into my spot in the train car. Our eyes remained locked. They weren't getting off at Kendall/MIT.

Whoops.

-Dave