Overheard: Regional Disconnect Edition

There's something fascinating about hearing someone say, in the most New York accent imaginable, "I'm not familiar with the subway," especially since we happened to be in New York at the time. I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which someone grows up, even on Long Island or New Jersey, and still has no experience with the subway. (The Mrs. and I happen to know someone who has a similar lack of experience with the MBTA, but she's from New Hampshire so she kind of gets a pass.)

Overheard: Unreliable Brain Edition

On the platform at the Mass. Ave. T station, I unavoidably overheard one side of a phone conversation. The caller asked the other person, "Did I leave my scarf in the car?" And then, after some explanation as to why she did not want to have to retrace her steps looking for it, she added, "Do you remember if I was wearing it?"

Overheard: Global Perspective Edition

Friday afternoon, December 30th, Newbury Street: "You don't have to be European to be boring."

Overheard: Open Window Edition

I was in the kitchen last Saturday morning, making coffee and cleaning up things. The window was open, and from the upstairs neighbors' kitchen directly above (also with windows open) I heard one of the guys who moved in at the beginning of September: "What an great morning! I'm not hung over, and I feel amazing!"

Overheard: One Thing Not Necessarily Related to the Other Edition

I stepped outside a few minutes ago to put out some trash and recycling. While I was in the driveway near the back of the house, I heard a voice and saw someone passing by the front of the house, talking loudly on his phone: "I went to Harvard, I don't need to be yelled at!"

Overheard: Golf and Indigestion Edition

Yesterday two dude-bros sitting behind me on the bus were expounding at length on their golf game, which I won't bore you with. But then things got strange, and interesting:

Dude-Bro #1: "I think that's the first time I've thrown up in a bar and it wasn't from drinking too much."
Dude-Bro #2: "Yeah, we never should have ordered that roast beef. It was like the last item on the menu."
Dude-Bro #1: "Why did we even eat there?"
Dude-Bro #2: "Because they took credit cards."

(I was extremely disappointed that I did not catch the name of the particular establishment they were talking about.)

Adventures in Mass Transit: Detours and Poor Decisions

This week I've had some rough commutes to work. Things haven't been too bad since I started commuting again, but at the beginning of this week Webster Avenue, the primary route between Union Square and Central Square, was closed for repair work, and traffic was being detoured along Washington Street in Somerville to Beacon Street near the Cambridge line (and then through Inman Square). The 86 bus run is already pretty slow in the morning, and all the additional traffic made it much worse.

I had no idea how long the detour was going to be in place, so on Tuesday I went the same way and had another abysmal ride. On Wednesday morning I checked Google Maps for traffic conditions before leaving the house and ended up taking a different route, catching a bus to Medford Square where I switched to the 96, which runs through Davis and Porter and all the way into Harvard Square. But I had to wait at least 15 minutes for that bus, so my overall time didn't improve.

Yesterday I went back to the 86. The driver warned us before leaving Sullivan that the traffic was terrible, and gave people the chance to get off and go catch an Orange Line train; I opted to stay where I was, in a seat on an air-conditioned vehicle (a more pleasant prospect than a jammed train). About halfway between Sullivan and Union Square, a group of about two dozen children boarded the bus (with adult supervision). I'd estimate they were around eight years old, going on some sort of outing. They were reasonably well behaved, but the bus was still pretty noisy; I had to put away my book because I couldn't concentrate.

Also, a man behind me was on his phone, describing loudly to someone in great, specific detail how to get from somewhere in the middle of Somerville to Summit Avenue, which is near the top of Prospect Hill. He went through the directions three times and then asked, "Are you sure you want Summit Avenue and not Summit Street? Because that's at the other end of town, near Davis." He then went on to describe loudly and in great, specific detail how to get to Summit Street, also three times.

By that point I found myself feeling somewhat disappointed that I wouldn't get to find out how the Summit situation would be resolved, but a couple of minutes later he took another call and proceeded to reiterate the directions to Summit Avenue one more time, loudly and in great, specific detail. (Trivia/conicidence: a long, long time ago I lived on Summit Avenue.) Then he got off the bus.

I did eventually arrive at work, but late enough that I could take only a 15-minute "lunch" break. Today I thought I would make a smarter choice. I considered the option of taking the subway into downtown and switching to the Red Line, but it just seems silly to me to cover so much extra distance, and I'm always a bit wary of a breakdown underground, and taking this route would double the chance of something happening.

As it happened, I ended up making a different but equally unfavorable choice. I went to Sullivan and caught a CT2, which makes limited stops but stops at Kendall (where I could connect to the Red Line) on its way across the river. Unfortunately I didn't think too carefully about it, and after we were underway I remembered that the CT2 normally takes Webster Avenue. I tried to figure out what sort of detour the driver would take, thinking perhaps we might run down Medford Street behind Twin City Plaza and connect with Cardinal Medeiros Avenue to get into Kendall Square.

Nope, it went straight up Washington Street. There wasn't as much traffic today, but we still slowed to a crawl before reaching Beacon Street. I thought I could hop out at Beacon and either catch an 86 or just walk the rest of the way, but the driver would not make any stops or let anyone off the bus, since (presumably) it was not running on its usual route and there are almost certainly rules about these things. So I sat there while the bus crawled its way through Inman and continued along Cambridge Street, to the point where it was able to rejoin the bus's regular route into Kendall. All that took an extra 30 minutes.

Allegedly the road closure is supposed to last only through next week, but that means I still need to find a better, faster route to work for another five weekdays.

Overheard: Verbal Schooling

One day last week I was on my way home on the Orange Line. I had gotten a seat a few spots away from the doors, so I was reading a book and not paying attention to the goings-on in the train car. At some point I noticed a verbal skirmish going on nearby, as the voices of the two people involved had gotten louder. I wish I had heard more of it, because the brief snippet I caught was pretty entertaining.

I was able to discern that a middle-aged woman standing by the door was trying to lean against the bulkhead at the end of the row of seats, and the metal bar that's positioned a couple of inches above it. Another woman, quite a bit older, was sitting in the end seat, resting her left arm on the edge of the bulkhead,  and holding a travel mug. The standing woman wanted the seated woman to move her arm off the edge, and the seated woman would not yield because she wanted both to rest her arm and hold her beverage at a convenient position for sipping. (This is a lot of setup, I know, but trust me it's worth it.)

They traded some snappish remarks with each other, the standing woman eventually resorting to the tried-and-true Bostonian solution of flinging assorted curses at the seated woman. The older woman then proceeded to mock the younger woman because she wasn't clever enough to come up with anything more clever than calling her a selfish bitch, or along those lines. At this point I was smiling to myself, impressed by the older woman's resolve and wit.

I missed a couple of lines, but eventually the standing woman, knowing she was losing, already embarrassed by the seated woman's cutting remarks, and getting a bit desperate, said something along like, "why can't you just let me lean here?" The response was, "I don't want your butt on my arm. I don't know where that behind has been."

I started to laugh out loud at that one, then quickly clapped my hand over my mouth and turned my  noise into a fake throat-clearing, because I did not want to betray evidence that I had been listening. But that was the final blow; the standing woman gave up with a sigh. Had this been happening on a TV show, the older woman would have done an imaginary mic drop, and for once that overused gesture would have been entirely earned and appropriate.

Overheared: All About the Context Edition

On Saturday evening we were at a bar/restaurant in Malden where there were two TVs showing one of the NHL playoff games. A woman at the adjacent table was engaged in a lively conversation with her friend and rarely looked in the direction of the TV, but at one point she looked up at it for a couple of moments, then said, "I thought that was a hug, but it's a fight."

Overheard: Beating the Clock Edition

Yesterday we stopped at our local coffee shop in Medford Square. A mother was fixing her drink rather hurriedly while her son, roughly five (small enough to fit under the counter overhang), fidgeted while waiting for her.

She finished, grabbed his hand, and hustled him toward the exit while saying, "Come on, we gotta go before someone wants to know why I left your brother standing alone on the sidewalk."

Overheard: Threat Assessment Edition

This afternoon I listened to a guy sitting behind me on the T have a phone conversation with his significant other that went generally along these lines: "You do not have ebola... how do I know? Because there are no confirmed cases of it in the state, or in any of the neighboring states... have you been in contact with anyone from West Africa? No, you haven't... you probably have the flu. If you're really that uneasy about it, go see your doctor... babe, I work in a hospital, it's my job to know these things... you are kind of a hypochondriac... you get sick a lot... it's not possible, you just don't have it..." and so on.

Overheard: Not Much Imagination Edition

This evening we ate at Yak & Yeti, a fine Indian restaurant in Somerville's Ball Square. Seated next to us were two young women who appeared to be in their mid-20s. One of the two did more of the talking than the other, and their conversation ranged to travel, photography, and blogging. At one point I heard the more talkative woman say, "If I had a blog, it would just be a blog of other people's photos."

Overheard: Parental Snark Edition

This afternoon I was poking around in a store and happened to be standing a few feet away from some mannequins. There were two adult figures and two smaller ones that were supposed to be their children.

As I was looking at clothing, a small child of maybe four went up to one of the child mannequins and hugged it, then looked over her shoulder and said, "Look, Mommy!" Without missing a beat, the mother replied, "Oh, you've found a new family, how nice."

Overheard: Class Notes Edition

On Wednesday afternoon I was listening to a conversation between two men who happened to be waiting for the bus with me, who clearly knew each other but seemingly not that well. Both were about a decade older than me, and I think they might have just gotten off work at the Stop & Shop because we were across the street from it (which would also explain their acquaintance).

At one point one of the men said to the other, "You went to [area Catholic high school]? I went to [area Catholic high school]! How come I don't remember you?" (The eventual answer was that he was a few years older than the other guy, and we all know how little attention seniors pay to underclassmen.)

The bus came, we all got on, and their conversation continued, turning to mutually remembered classmates. Of one person, one asked the other if he was in touch regularly and the other responded, "Ah, him I mostly see at, you know, wakes and funerals."

Then the second asked, "Do you remember ______? Blonde hair, tough as nails? Used to think, she's probably gonna end up in jail? Know what she ended up doin'? US marshal."

Overheard: Poor Grasp of Spanish Edition

Over the weekend at a bar in Salem, while sitting adjacent to the bar, this was overheard between a bartender and one of a group that appeared to be regulars:

"...so we'll be doing that for Cinco de Mayo."
"When's Cinco de Mayo?"

Overheard: Reality of Winter Edition

On the platform at Wellington station last Friday, I happened to hear a young man say to his female friend, "I picked the wrong day to wear a sleeveless shirt." (He was otherwise bundled up in winter gear, but those other layers definitely make a difference.)

Overheard: Lack of Geographic Clarity Edition

This bit of conversation took place between two young women on Saturday afternoon in the Starbucks at Wellington Circle, shortly before 2 pm.

"What time are you meeting the girls?"
"2:30, so I need to get going."
"Where are you meeting them?"
"Dedham."
"Where's Dedham?"
"I don't know, I guess I should figure that out."

(If I were to guess, I'd say they were meeting at Legacy Place.)

Overheard: Parental Responsibility Edition

At the auto show on Monday, the Volvo display was one of the only areas on the show floor with any seating (aside from sitting in the cars themselves). A group of cream-colored leather couches (possibly Swedish, probably not from IKEA) was arranged in a rectangle, and a couple of families were taking a break there.

As we passed by, a young boy of perhaps four jumped up from sitting alongside his parents and started walking across the seating surface of one of the sofas. I didn't see the reaction of either parent, but the mother called the child's name several times, scoldingly but with little sense of threat or consequence behind it, in a vain attempt to get him to stop.

I then heard her say, perhaps to her husband, another parent, or possibly even to herself, "This is why we don't have white furniture at home." I couldn't help myself: we weren't that close, but loudly enough so that it was within the realm of possibility that the parents heard me, I said to my friend, "This is why I don't have children."

Overheard: We've All Wondered About It Edition

While I was riding the bus today, a woman boarded with a small boy of three or possibly four. They sat a couple of seats behind me. A few minutes later I heard the boy ask his mother, "Is it going to be the same driver on the way back?"

Overheard: Future Dr. Evil Edition

On Sunday afternoon we were at the Flour bakery off Congress Street in the Seaport District. It's near the Children's Museum and the parking garage that its visitors use, so there are always lots of families around.

I was standing outside, waiting for the Mrs. to come out and eating a doughnut I had purchased. My back was to the people passing by (in case I made an embarrassing mess while eating) so I didn't get a good look at this future mad scientist, but as one family passed behind me a boy of maybe eight was chanting in a singsong voice, "I have a bio-weapon!" I'm guessing this was in reference to something he'd acquired from the museum gift shop, filtered through an overactive imagination.

(Side note: that doughnut? Insane. It's $3, but it's also roughly the size of a softball and filled to bursting with delicious raspberry goo.)