Friday, October 09, 2009

Strangely Silent

There is no A/C running on the train this morning. Two weeks ago, this situation would have been a Really Big Problem. Today it is not. The beautiful weather does not warrant the use of supplemental cooling systems.

The A/C normally provides a baseline level of sound so that when it is absent, an eerie sort of silence is revealed. All that you hear is motion and people. The clack-clack of the wheels on the tracks. The sniffles of noses. The muted whirr of the electric motors struggling against Newton's First Law of Motion. The squeak of tennis shoes on... whatever strange scientific miracle substance that makes up the speckled, palegreen floor.

The gentlemen to my left is brave enough to initiate a conversation on his cell phone. Because there is no other noise, everyone in our train car can hear every whisper. In his attempt to remain relatively quiet he needs to repeat himself often. He queries the other party "Did you get sumpthin to eat?" He asks this question four times. He makes another call, presumably to another party. "So, you get something to eat?" I can't decide whether I would be annoyed or comforted to have a friend whose function was to verify whether or not I ate breakfast each day. After all, it is The Most Important Meal of The DayTM.

I'd tie up this post with something profound about "eliminitating the noise in our daily lives" or something silly like that but I gotta run. "Approaching station... Priest Drive and Washington... Exit to Left..."

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