Insanity Brings People Together

Posted by Cynical Sarah on June 15, 2006

Just when I thought I’d finally seen it all, the public transportation continues to surprise me with its wild and wacky patrons. I’ve been using public transit for more than a year now. The novelty hadn’t quite worn off until recently when I went back to work again and started riding the Skytrain every day.

I turned into one of all the mindless masses who crams into a train car every morning for the ride downtown and for the ride back home. I do my best not to really look at anyone and to completely mind my own business. It makes for a very boring, uneventful ride when everyone else on the train is doing the exact same thing.

I grew complacent and almost bored with the whole commuting thing, so of course, that’s when it had to rears its head and remind me that weird and interesting things can happen when people from all walks of life are trapped in a moving vehicle.

One day I got on the train and managed to actually get a seat. At the next station, several people crammed into the car including a lady who started asking around if anybody smoked. Luckily I had my mp3 player going so I could half ignore her and just shake my head no when she looked at me.

However, someone must have made the mistake of saying yes, because she suddenly launched into a tirade about the hazards of smoking. She went on and on about how dangerous it is for a person’s health as well as the health of everyone around them.

I have to say, my favorite line from her sermon though was “People who smoke and don’t care about their health are the same people that snort crack up their nose” – an interesting arguing point I must say.

The brilliant part of her tirade was that she had a captive audience. You couldn’t help but listen as you rode along in the train car with no escape until the next station. Even with my headphones on, I couldn’t help but catch bits and pieces of what she had to say.

It takes a lot of guts and a certain amount of craziness for someone to get on public transit and start preaching to the masses that way. Especially about something like smoking where you’re bound to anger a smoker or two who are tired of being berated for their bad habit.

She’s lucky she didn’t make anyone else angry by causing such a stir on the train, but you can get away with that kind of thing when you’re obviously not running on all brain cylinders too.

The strange thing is that her speech brought the rest of us a little closer on the train that day. Like I said, on the Skytrain you do your best to keep to yourself, so nobody interacts if they don’t know each other. But when that lady got off the train at the next station, there were more than just a few of us who shared a moment as we all laughed and relaxed again for the rest of the commute.

Apparently we can all relate to how the crazies of this world make us uncomfortable. So kudos to you crazy lady for making the impossible happen. You may not have stopped people from smoking, but you made total strangers on a train take notice of each other and share a moment.

- Sarah L. Polson

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