T for 2

The T is a marvelously convenient system of buses, underground trains, and commuter rail lines that take you just about anywhere you want to go within Greater Boston. Rumor has it that if you take the Green Line D train all the way, you may eventually get to Dublin. Taking the Red Line all the way only gets you to Dorchester, and you don't want to go there. I dated a girl who literally lived at the end of the Red Line (Ashmont). Each time I talked to her, she told me about another shooting that had taken place across the way from her. She had other problems besides, but the notion of a stray bullet piercing my brain was no small factor in my decision to cross her off the list. For all I know, she could be the shooter. If Dorchester doesn't do it for you, then the Orange Line offers other fine opportunities to be shot. Your best bet would probably be Ruggles, as there was a shooting on the train at or near the Ruggles T stop just the other day. You may also run into the likes of some really bizarre people. There was the seemingly nice older gentleman who asked me to try to zip up his jacket last winter, because he was having trouble with it. When he complained that I wasn't getting it zipped fast enough, I contemplated shooting him.

I arrived here just before the T completed its overhaul. Up until this past fall, the T was still largely accessed by tokens. You had to buy tokens and then put the coins into the turnstyle. Now, the whole system has been upgraded to comply with the 21st century. They call them Charlie Tickets. You go to the touch-screen kiosks and use the menu to select what kind of ticket you want, how much value you want on it, and then you enter in your payment information and slide your credit card (you can pay cash, too - but only if you are at a machine that takes it). To be more economical, you can purchase CharlieCards, which are geared for the everyday commuter. Once you buy your ticket, you insert it in the slot on one end and then it pops up through the top of the gate. The automatic doors then slide open and let you pass.

The T is the oldest subway system in the United States. However, for the most part, it works pretty well. It's nice that the trains are air-conditioned. Only rarely is the T shut down in spots for repair. When that happens, they are pretty good about providing you with free alternate service (usually via the bus). Most trains have automated announcements that tell you what stop is due up next. Sometimes those malfunction and tell you that the same stop is coming up over and over again or that your train is heading to Braintree when you know you're going to Alewife.

The Green Line is annoying sometimes because you never know when the next train will come...plus, there are three or four different Green Line trolleys that wend their way through the same first few stops, only to branch out into different directions towards Brookline, Chestnut Hill, or what have you. If you need the E line to take you to Northeastern University, you'll see a couple of C trains, a D train, and maybe even one more C train before the E comes down that track.

Even the Red Line can get on your nerves, because when you want the Braintree train, the Alewife train comes and vice versa. "Attention passengers, the next Red Line train to...(please say Braintree...say Braintree...) Alewife is now arriving." Bastards!!!

The only problem I have with the T is that it still shuts down at about 12:45 am or so. This has sometimes presented a bit of a problem. A girl I was seeing last fall in Brookline invited me to stay at her place for the night. I would have done, except I had to work the next day and it would have been impossible to get all the way back to Somerville, shower, get dressed, and still get to work in a timely manner. I almost stayed over, but this was another crazy girl I was dealing with anyway, so I wasn't sure I wanted to. Anyway, I thought I could catch the last train out. I had missed it. The cab ride home was $25. Meg later told me that I could have gone back to her place, and I had thought about doing that just before the cab pulled up.

When my flight was delayed coming back from Chicago this past April, I got in so late that the T had already stopped running for the night and in a few more hours, it would start back up again. At 2:30 am, I could have waited about three hours at the airport until the T started running first thing in the morning. Instead, I decided to take a cab. Incidently, that cost me about as much as it did from Brookline. On the plus side however, the T ride to the airport is about 45 minutes. With the Big Dig project all but complete and with virtually no traffic that time in the morning, I literally went from airplane to my front door in twenty minutes!

Every now and then, there's funny stuff on the T. There was the time recently when after boarding a late train, we saw a gang of young college kids, each hooked up with IPods, dancing wildly but silently on the train. They continued this eerie cultish behavior as they got off at their stop, dancing all the way to the station's exit. That might have been their strange interpretive re-enactment of the Boston "T" Party.