Patron Saint of Dirty Subway Cars

I had a goal when I woke up this morning. To be a man. A man is tough, a man is in control, and a man doesn't have to call his mother (or anyone for that matter) to complain about his problems. A man can figure out a way to use public transportation to get from Fullerton to Sherman Oaks. I was going to prove that I was a man this morning. Or I was going to be horribly lost. For those of you who really want to know, how today wnet can be easilly split into four categories: The Bus, The Subway, Work, and The Train. Here we go...
THE BUS
I get free tides on all the OCTA bus lines with my ID card. I arrived at the bus stop on time, got in the bus, and got on my way. No problems. I wish all of life could be this way. Of course there was the issue of me being on the wrong side of the street when the bus came, and missing it, and having to wait in the frigid cold for almost an hour for the next bus to come. I was sitting on the bench, shivering, and staring at all the people in their cars. I'm pretty sure one of them pointed at me and laughed. I know I'm paranoid, and make stuff like that up all the time, but I swear I saw it. Laugh if you must. I finally got on the right bus, and wished the bus out of my life for now.
THE SUBWAY
I was listening to Copeland as I walked to the Metro station. Copeland is one of those bands that really turns you on to being in love. I turned them off. I don't want to be in love. I want to be asleep. The two can't exist side by side.That's all I have to say on the subject. There's something about the subway that makes my brain itch. I mean that in a good way. There's just so many different people, all of them together in the same dirty car, going a million different places. Comming from a million different places. For one moment though, like that instant before a firework explodes, everything is held together. Sometimes they talk to each other. Strangers! Strangers talk to each other? In this country? Only in the tunnels underneath the city can you find these crazy backward people who talk to each other. Two middle aged women fall asleep, their heads and shoulders resting in the perfect places to support each other. A 250 pound white teenager with shaggy blonde har chats it up with a tiny black woman with thick black glasses. A punk finds his seat next to a security guard. The guard pulls out a rosay, and starts to run his fingers across it slowly. He smiles. I wish I could feel God in something as tangible as a string of beads. I think I've always envied catholics for that. There's a man with an ebarrassingly large bouquet of pink and red heart shaped baloons standing in the corner. He's going to give them to someone else, so that she will have to be awkward and eimbarassed all night long. That way, they can share more in common. The subway is a brilliant flash of joy in an otherwise irritating day. I think I will ride it again sometime.
WORK
I've discovered something that I don't want to do with my life. I do not want to answer the phone. I do not want to tell someone named Peter Glasser five times in ten minutes that Someone named Susanne (One of three Susannes in the building) doesn't want to pick up her phone. I do not want to pick up that phone knowing full well that everyone on the other line expects me to be an expert on the 130 people on the building roster after working there for a grand total of 5 days. You know what else I don't want to do for the rest of my life? Food service. Or retail.
THE TRAIN
I must wear an invisible sign somewhere on me that says "don't help this man if he comes to you with a question." What I've learned about the people who work for Amtrak is that they don't talk a lot, but the sure do know how to read invisible signs. They like them so much, in fact, that they decided to use them for all the directions for departures. This has made me miss my train. The man at the questions desk tells me that there's a machine for tickets on the side of the building, but that I'd better hurry because I've only got 5 minutes before it leaves. With his extremely clear methods of both giving directions and speaking in hand, I somehow find said machine. I run. I make it. I'm going to make it the whole way. I'm in the train, litening to a song by the band Psapp called "Calm Down." It isn't working. This extremely large man comes up to me and asks for my ticket. I give it to him. He gives me a look of utter contempt, and tells me I have the wrong ticket. He tells me he's going to kick me off at the next exit. I tell him I didn't know how that happened, and I would gladly buy a ticket from him. He said they didn't like to do that. He asked me how I could have possibly bought the wrong ticket, and what was I trying to pull. I asked him (in my head) why "they" like to wait for the train to start moving before "they" bother to see if anyone bought the right ticket. I wondered (still in my head) if this whole situation could have been avoided if such a precaution were in place. The version of this man who is in my head is a lot less scary and a lot more understanding. The man said he would let it slide for six dollars. I gave him six dollars. I think I just bribed him. Anyway, the next stop comes up. Where, you ask? why, Fullerton, California of course. I want my six bucks back, but I head out the door silently. The man calls after me that he bets I pull stuff like this all the time, and that he thinks he recognizes my face. In my head, I respond back "Yeah, I actually spend money on a ticket, but then buy the wrong one, just to screw with your head. That's totaly something that's worth my time." Out loud, I say the same things that I'd been saying the whole time on the train; that I didn't know, that I'd never ridden the train before, and that I was sorry. But it didn't matter. It was over. I made it. I called HyounJun to pick me up because I was too tired to wait for the bus, and I didn't want to risk a fight with another person who thinks he's a cop because his uniform sort of looks like one.
So that's it. That was my day today. It's too late to call my mom to complain, so I guess I really am a man now. I've passed through the fire. Unscathed? Not exactly, but will I make the same mistakes tomorrow? Hell no! Katherine's giving me a ride tomorrow.

Moral of the story? Trust freinds, not trains, keep your best comebacks to yourself, and always, always, always ride the subway.