An old woman sits across from us and knits.
Two tattooed teenage boys hold onto the handles from the ceiling and stand in the middle of the car.
Someone on the other end of the car blasts music from a cell phone. To be more specific, it's Lady Gaga's "Pokerface." Steve laughs. I bob my head in time. The teenagers grin.
The dude with the phone changes it to that awful Ke$ha song (you know, the one where she wakes up feeling like P. Diddy even though she's a white chick). I laugh and start to dance in my seat. Steve joins me. The boys groove to it too, all four of us discretely singing "Don't stop, make it pop, DJ blow my speakers up." "Oh my god, can we get some strobe lights up in here?" says one of the boys. "Yeah, dance party!" says the other boy.
The train comes to a stop and the dude with the phone gets off.
The tattooed teenagers go back to making jokes about elderly strippers.
Steve and I go back to geeking out about the music festival we just went to.
The old woman is still knitting.
All thoughts of a dance party are abandoned.
Public transportation is fabulous, yes?
Ahh, the good side of public transportation- when it feels like a party instead of just a sardine can! Reminds me of all the reasons I'm glad I don't drive anymore.
ReplyDeleteIs Portland truly the green paradise they say it is, or do people secretly drive just as much as anywhere else? ;-)
That's one of those moments you wish you could film and put on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a journey like that...
ReplyDeleteBenny - It felt like a sardine can again when two black chicks got on and loudly discussed their sex lives. The party was short-lived.
ReplyDeleteAnd Portland is pretty green. People make a big deal out of riding bicycles everywhere. In some places, trash cans have a sign on them that say "LAND FILL" in attempts to guilt people into recycling. Of course, people do drive a lot too, but I think Portland is more environmentally conscious than most cities.
Allison - Yeah, I really need to start filming these things haha. Or maybe my life is actually a sitcom and it IS secretly being filmed. Seems like a valid theory some days.
Emily - It was a pretty epic journey. Probably on my top ten list of public transportation moments (with number one being the time a transvestite got his purse stuck on the seat behind me and had a mini-freak out).
Ah I want that journey! I had to listen to a girl phone THREE friends about her parents' divorce on my way home this evening. Three times I had to listen to it. After that, all sympathy was gone. I would have PAID for an impromptu dance party.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I was on the Max in Portland, two Trimet security people got on and wondered loudly what is wrong with society these days, obviously directed at my brother, his girlfriend, her sister, and I. They all have varying amounts of tattoos, piercings, and gages. So then, we began discussing our theories with them and after the rude fake cops got off, somehow we were on the subject of how Starbucks puts unicorn blood in their coffee.
ReplyDelete