Once, Twice, Three Times a Metro

So I complain about the metro on here. A lot. However, in the past two days the rain clouds parted, a gentle breeze blew through mes cheveux, and the metro gods smiled upon me. I had not one, nor two, but three absolutely stellar encounters on the metro in my last three trips with the finest real-life amusement this city has to offer. If you are one who prefers when I make fun of myself instead of others, I’m sorry. Yesterday and today I looked good…I mean real good…especially compared to the Parisians that I encountered last night, this morning, and this afternoon on lines 8, 6, and 8 respectively.

Ride One; Wednesday Night: "Oh my god I forgot about those!"

It had been an atypically long Wednesday – Abbey and I woke up and went for a jog, arrived back at the apartment in time to read for a while, I then found out the hard way that “choking up” works wonders in correcting one’s baseball swing but is less than pleasant when applied to using a frying pan before heading off to school. I went to class, then did some reading, then went to a speaker. Perhaps the metro gods were rewarding me for entering their lair through an entrance one stop further along the line than my typical routine, but for whatever reason, in that dark, smelly, damp Parisian metro, my day brightened.

I wedged myself between two fellow passengers – avoiding eye contact so that things wouldn’t get more awkward as our entire bodies came into contact. Once I had staked my claim on about 16 square inches of metro I looked up…and there she was. Her curly ponytail reflected the glow of the fluorescent metro bulbs creating what seemed to be a halo around the delicately-coiffed remaining portion of her mullet. She looked like Billy Ray Cyrus’ short, grouchy, middle-aged French sister. Stellar.


Ride Two; Thursday Morning: "Narcotic or Psychotropic?"

Dictionary.com defines narcotics as a “class of substances that blunt the senses…that in large quantities produce euphoria, stupor, or coma,” and Psychotropic drugs as those “affecting mental activity, behavior or perception,” before saying something about them being bad and causing addiction/health problems and whatnot. This guy was likely on a highly amusing combination of several variants of narcotics and psychotropic substances. Now I do not condone these substances as often they lead to things that are not nearly as amusing as the gentleman on the 6 line this morning who not only stared at things that weren’t there, he pointed at them, grabbed at them, and laughed hysterically at them. Additionally, at each stop he would crouch down on the ground and giggle uncontrollably until people surrounded him, at which point he would stop giggling, slowly stand up, and resume his boisterous giggle. This went on for the duration of my 25 minute ride. As though all this wasn't amusing enough, he periodically stroked his face against the [disgusting] metro pole like a puppy dog who wanted table scraps. Once again, Stellar – thank you metro gods.

Ride Three; Thursday Evening: "The Human Disco Ball"

She was wearing headphones so she was unable to hear me giggle…or tell that the entire train was listening to her sing along to her Frenchie music. The headphones apparently also made her oblivious to the fact that the combination of her gray pants, shiny silver jacket and shiny silver purse created the aforementioned effect of making her look like a human disco ball as she swayed back in forth by the metro door singing loudly in her own little human disco ball world. I’ve never seen so many French strangers nudging each other and laughing (especially on the 8 line which for whatever reason attracts many stressed out Pierres). Do I feel a little bad for joining them? Not one bit. Am I being judgmental? Maybe a little…but I’m merely stating my observations without any type of value judgment on this young disco ball lady aside from: hilarious.

The gentlemen with accordions should take note – their accordion playing doesn’t amuse me, but I would gladly have surrendered all of the change on my person to any of these three individuals if they were holding a dirty, crumpled Dixie cup. If any of them are reading this: the offer stands – should we meet again, and you amuse me with your glowing mullet, drug-induced shenanigans, or gently-swaying, disco-ball-sparkling, out-of-tune-overly-animated-singing-with-complete-disregard-for-the-world-around-you, then you have a good amount of centiemes coming your way…not my mother-in-law Centieme, the coin centiemes. I almost want to go get on the metro just to see if my luck holds.

Thanks for reading.