zen.org Communal Weblog

I got onto a mostly empty DART train. It left Connolly Station, the stop just before Tara Station and Pearse Station. Those two that do the majority of the work loading up train cars with passengers headed in either direction. (Well, the stop at Lansdowne Road is an epidemic in itself when there’s a rugby or football match on at Lansdowne Road Stadium, the site for 50,000 boisterous inebriated fans.) I went to an empty pair of (long) seats on one end of the front car. My Rio500 is loaded up with a bunch of podcasts; this time, it’s lots of the cool stories from The Seanachai.

The next stop, Tara, half-fills the car with people heading home from work. Across from me half of the empty seat is taken by a guy who looks like he’s about 20 years old. Wearing blue corduroy pants and a dark jacket over a t-shirt, he puts his backpack down beneath the seat and opens it up. Out comes a copy of Nuts: Everything For Men magazine. He closes the backpack, scratches his 5 o’clock shadow, and opens the newly-purchased periodical. The train’s doors close with a loud beeping and we start moving. The fellow across from me starts—um, I guess reading—his magazine. PAGE 1: An article well placed by a word processor to not run into the many large pictures of nude women clutching their breasts.

As we pull into Pearse, the number of people waiting on the platform is not a surprise to me but is still impressive. We slow down, come to a stop, and the doors open. The flood begins. There are so many people, the seats fill up quickly and the remainder stand. Even when it’s obvious there can’t possibly be room, still more people come in.

The other part of my seat, and the one opposite me with the Magazine Reader, both get quickly claimed by a man and a woman in their 50s, I’d guess. They’re friends. Conversations start all over the train, headphones are pushed into ears of those who are alone, books are opened even by those still standing, and we keep moving. The two new residents of our area of the train continue whatever they were talking about just before the doors opened to board the train.

Magazine Reader glances over and sees the person next to him.

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Flip. The page with the cup size contest is gone. This new page of the magazine has plenty of text and pictures of cars. Thank God. Flip.

Oh crap, more boobs, quick, before she stops talking to the man sitting across from her. She’ll see! Quick! Flip. Whew, a story about Ozzy Osbourne. Flip.

Cameras, cars, flip, free beer contest, flip girls in bikinis including Charlotte Church?? Eyes wide reading the story, then realizes half the page is only the bottom half of bikinis. Flip.

Girl stripping. Crap. Flip. Girl holding only one breast, Jesus C—Flip. Girl tanning her—dammit! Mobile’s ringing, I’ll never—flip—manage to get to—flip—something without. More. Naked. Girls. Mobile should just get turned off.

Screw it. Slam.

Magazine closed, rolled up, crammed on the seat pressed between hip and the inside of the train. Staring out the window, clearly pissed off. Can’t believe it, almost caught (caught?) by someone who looking just like mom. Damn magazine.
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Makes you wonder why he bothered to buy it just before taking the train…