July 10, 2012
5:55pm
Outbound Commuter Rail
Dear Young Men Sitting Across the Aisle Last Week,
I don’t know if you remember me,
but we met last week on the 5:55pm train.
I was the chick who was attempting to cause the man sitting with me to
spontaneously combust when he refused to move his backpack from the seat and
allow another person to sit. You two
arrived with your skateboards and your band-aids, looking a little worse for
the wear, but smiling nonetheless. I was
personally jealous of your sunburns and your fraying cuffs, because you looked
like you had a much better day than I had.
I certainly didn’t think you deserved the looks that the Chubby Blue
Suit was giving you as you sat down across the aisle from me.
When the conductor came by, I
offered you my one-way ticket that was going to expire, but the conductor said he
had already started punching you a ticket—which you couldn’t afford, so it
really would have been much kinder to let me help you out, but apparently no
one was going to give you a break on the 5:55pm. I don’t really know what we did to offend
them, other than be under the age of forty.
And making eye contact.
Anyways, the real reason I’m
writing this letter is because of what happened next. I was sitting near the window, still trying
to figure out a way to cause Backpack Man a brand of genuine pain, when my
Travel Buddy turned to me and told me to start listening to you.
“You
know that book on Tituba we had to read?”
One of you asked the other.
“Yeah?”
“It
was real interesting, dude. You know,
she was, like, taking care of the kids, and helping out the family, and she…she
was a cool lady, dude, you know? I never
knew all that [stuff] about her, you know?
I wanna read more. Can we go to the
library tomorrow and I can find me another book on her?”
“Yeah,
sure.”
And I was happy.
Because not only were you two happy kids who weren’t afraid to say thank
you, and who made sure your skateboards weren’t taking up room on your seat
that could be used by a human (wondrous thought, that!), but you are
Historians! Well, Historians in
Training, at least. Skateboarding
Historians!
I admit,
I listened in for a little longer.
“Can
we learn how to be ninjas?”
“I
dunno. Do they teach that at, like, at a
school?”
“Yeah. I bet they do. I heard of a school that’ll teach you to be a
ninja.”
“We
should do that. School for ninjas. We could do it over the summer, right?”
“Yeah,
of course. There’s like, eight weeks left,
dude. Yeah, we can.”
Godspeed, History Ninjas.
I hope you and your skateboards encounter fair winds and soft landings,
and that your battles against inaccuracies and ineffectively adhesive band-aids
are ever successful. Thanks for the
smile.
…Also, are you accepting applications for Sidekicks?
Lots of love,
No comments:
Post a Comment