Random Boston Stories

Today, for your reading pleasure, I have stories of things very Bostony. Well, probably city in general, but mostly stuff that stands out to me for one reason or another as being different from where I spent the first 25 years of my life.



First, as I have now lived here for about a year and a half and ride public transportation every day, I've definitely noticed that I see people who remind me so strongly of someone I know back home that it led to the "Everyone has a Boston Twin" theory. It's pretty amazing. I won't go through the whole list or anything, but hardly a week goes by where I don't think to myself, "wow, that person looks/walks/acts/dresses exactly like _______." It's a fun little game I play when I don't have a book with me and I'm not pretending to sleep on the train so people won't talk to me. A large part of my energy goes to trying to make sure people don't talk to me on public transportation. That's the main reason I don't knit in public. There are some crazy people riding the train and I don't really feel like I need to draw that much attention to myself. Not to mention there just isn't any room during rush hour and I don't want to get punched in the face.



Second, last night I was walking to the train and I was stopped at a light when this person came up to me and tried to make me take a magazine on which the main headline was "Is the Devil inYour Laptop?" They guy attempting to dupe me into taking this magazine then launched into an explanation of how Bill Gates is training terrorists to take over this country and that all these shootings and acts of violence committed by teenagers seen in the news are because Bill Gates is programming their minds with video games and it's all a very carefully and elaborately planned coup. I think he got pretty mad at me when the light changed and I just shook my head, said "no thanks" and walked to the station. He called after me, "are you kidding? Don't you see what he's doing? He's training soldiers!" I was lucky enough to dodge his companion on the next corner trying to give out the same materials. This story leads me to...



Third, within the last year they started publishing a second subway newspaper in Boston. There's always been the Metro, which you can get off a stand for free as you're walking into the subway so you have something to read on the train. As you can imagine, you always find these things laying around because heaven forbid the person who takes and reads the paper actually put it in the garbage. That's just asking too much. Anyway, not the point. I can't remember exactly when this started, but at this point it seems like an eternity ago, a second paper called Boston Now started appearing. Only Boston Now comes with people who stand at every entrance, exit and sometimes inside the stations. They practically shove the paper in your face and shout "FREE BOSTON NOW, GET YOUR FREE BOSTON NOW!" They do not like to take no for an answer, and now a portion of my energy that went toward ensuring that nobody talks to me on public transportation has to be diverted into trying to avoid these Boston Now people. It's a tricky commute, I'm telling you.

Fourth, this afternoon we had a bit of excitement. At one point in the afternoon the Boston Police Department blocked off the street outside my office and surrounded a silver Explorer. At this point, we obviously needed to get to the bottom of this. Turns out that it was an operation in which they were recovering a stolen car (the Explorer) and apprehending the thief (the driver). They had like 5 police cars and a box truck deal to put the suspect in. It was pretty cool.

So there you have it. This is the most interesting thing I could come up with. :)