Turns out, I can be a dick.
It was between my third and forth step as I crossed the mezzanine of Runnymede Subway Station when I saw the sign in the TTC toll collector’s booth window:
Be back shortly, please wait.
Nine times out of ten, a pocket in my bag would have housed at least a few spare tokens. But having reached in there earlier I knew all I’d find were couple pieces of lint. You can’t go anywhere on lint. I needed to buy some tokens.
As I continued to walk across the floor toward the deserted booth, I saw another TTC employee manning a gated entrance. If stress is in any way part of his day to day, his reclined chair, slouched back, foot resting casually on the token bin and Venti coffee dangling between his thumb and what I could only assume to be his go-to nose-picking finger did an excellent job of hiding it.
Standing by the unmanned collector booth watching this TTC employee sit by the gates and stare sloth-like at the wall across from him, I quickly started boiling up a resentment toward him and his absent friend. Why was he ignoring me? I wanted to voice my displeasure.
“Chill out. You don’t need to say anything, you’re not in a hurry.”
Like a girl desperately trying to stop her drunken boyfriend from fighting someone else’s drunken boyfriend outside a bar, my conscious did its best to keep me from saying something stupid. But with each passing moment, the urge to do so increased.
I wanted to say, “if you don’t mind risking the brief bit of exercise it would take to walk over to this booth and sell me some tokens, I’d really appreciate it. You can get back to your slouch & stare when we’re done.”
Again, my conscious pleaded with me to keep my mouth shut. “Give them a few more tics.”
Fine.
That’s when the TTC sloth made the biggest dick move ever.
He broke away from his staring contest with the wall, turned to me and said, “If you have to get to work, go.”
“Excuse me?”
“Go man, I don’t know where the fare collector is.” As I walked through the turnstile free of charge, his facial expression completed his thought, that guy’s been in the washroom all morning.
Are you serious? This guy, who I had spent the last few minutes lashing with negative thoughts and “don’t be a lazy dick” stares, is actually a good dude?
As I walked downstairs to the train level I thanked my conscious for being a better man than I. If I had said the things I wanted to say, my morning, and his, would have turned out much differently.
As it were, all I got was a free subway ride and the sobering reminder that I have the potential to be as big of a dick as anyone else.
