Lightrail Stories

The Phoenix Metro lightrail is a very interesting place to be at the right time. I ride the lightrail almost everyday to meet my mom at her job, so I encounter some very interesting people on a daily basis. I'm just going to tell a couple of my favorite lightrail stories, because I definitely have a lot. Some are sweet, some are scary, and some are just kind of funny. Enjoy?

Don't Start With Me!-I was riding eastbound with a friend of mine, and we were talking. Loudly. There was an old (or presumably old) American-Indian bum taking up two seats, sleeping. She was snoring loudly, and was nothing short of a little crazy. Suddenly, she woke up, and yelled at my friend and I saying, "Hey! Don't start any sh!t with me I'll kill you both!" Immediately after saying that, she closed her eyes again, and we continued talking. The lady woke up again, sitting up this time, visibly angry. She said to us, "What did I say?! Huh?! I said don't start anything with me!!" The people around us looked at my friend and I, giving us somewhat reassuring looks, saying things like, "It's okay guys, you can keep talking, you're not bothering anyone here." Not wanting to be yelled at anymore by her, we got off the train a stop or two earlier and walked the rest of the way back.

No, No, That's Your Dollar-This one happened to me just yesterday, and I think it's a pretty sweet story to be honest. I was rushing for the lightrail to make it on time to meet my mom (in the end she was late, but that's completely beside the point.) The dollar that I was feeding into the machine kept getting spit back out, probably because it was too wrinkled or crumpled up. A homeless man walked up to me, and said, "Hold on a second, I've got a dollar you can have." We traded dollars, his worked, I thanked him very graciously, and I got on the train and left. The reason that I even decided to tell this story was because things like that, the kindness of the human heart, are hard to come by sometimes. I can name 20 people off the top of my head that would never even think of doing something like that, then there's this man that I've never seen before in my life, and out of the goodness in his heart, decides to help me. I'm probably making a huge deal out of nearly nothing here, but whatever, I'm a softy at heart believe it or not.

Hey Man! I Didn't Do Nothing!-This one isn't really a lightrail story, but I want to tell it anyway. I was in the park side of the library with Lola shooting a Gentlemanly Anonymous video (that we never finished because of this story), when all of a sudden, we see a really angry black guy in a red shirt and loose jeans. All of a sudden, he grabs a homeless man, and starts beating the hell out of him. The man starts to run, yelling, "I didn't do anything! I swear I didn't do anything," but he didn't believe the man and kept beating on him. Finally, he stopped, as the homeless man ran away. The black guy yelled at him, "That's right you better run old man! That's right!" Other homeless people in the vicinity of the beating (this little park is where a lot of them live), were yelling at the black guy, "You best get outta here! Cops are coming! I can hear the sirens already!" After hearing that, he slowly but surely got out of there, disappearing behind the bridge. A couple of security guards ran out and questioned two girls sitting near us, but that was it. No cops, no nothing. It's probably just a daily occurrence around there.

Mexican Vs. Puerto Rican-My final, and favorite, story of the day. I was riding the lightrail with Piera and I had my iPod on shuffle. We were sharing earphones and a Puerto Rican salsa song came on. To my surprise, she actually liked it (Piera's pretty white), and asked what kind of Mexican music it was. That's when it all went downhill. I looked at her and said, "No! This is Puerto Rican music. God you are so white. You should know the difference between a Mexican and a Puerto Rican by now!" The lady in front of us started laughing, turned around, and started agreeing with me. Piera's face got all flustered, and I have to admit it was pretty funny.

Thanks for reading today. Sorry I haven't posted in the past week or so, it's been more than hectic, and a lot of stuff (bad stuff) has happened this week so far, so I'm just waiting for First Friday and my garage sale on Saturday. I promise now that I'm on Spring Break I'll be posting a lot more!