Hey, where’d you get that green shirt?
“Hey, Hey…where’d you get that green shirt?” yelled a tall, crazed Septa rider as he admired the green Phillies “luck o’the Irish” shirt that I wore to the parade today, “I couldn’t find one of those anywhere.”
I turned to him and grumbled a response, something along the lines of “luck, I guess”.
In reality, it’s simply a mass produced shirt that I bought at the stadium one day, but who am I to diminish the Phillies Spirit in the guy.
I hate Septa. Riders of the lowest common denominator, the left half of the intelligence bell curve occupied the El I had ridden just a few minutes earlier, and it seemed that the 100 trolley would not be any better.
The Phillies parade was today, so people were traveling on Septa en masse, similarly to how the Japanese ride their subways at rush hour. For the first time ever, there was not even a place to breathe, no matter if you were sitting or standing. Surprisingly, the ride into work was quite normal, eerily normal actually, I guess it was a bit too early in the morning for even the most die hard of fans. The parade was not starting for another five hours, leaving plenty of time for the crowds to gather in every orifice of the city.
We left for an early lunch to catch the parade. In reality, we simply skipped the lunch part and made our way along Walnut Street to where it intersected with Broad Street: The parade route. “Hi, remember that today is a regular work day, and no concessions of time off will be made to those wanting to attend the parade”, said an email earlier in the day. Pfft….yea, ok, get right on that chief. We managed to get a pretty decent spot to stand, only about ten feet or so from Broad, about six or seven lines of people back; not bad for having left an hour before the parade was to start.
Coming from work, we were dressed business casual; no Phillies attire whatsoever, and Hasan had his Halloween costume with him….or…on him: The Wendy’s girl wig. We were heathens, getting perplexed looks. No Phillies gear at the parade…we must be mad! Are we not citizens of Philadelphia, are we not patriotic to the Phillies? At some points, I thought we were going to be clubbed like a baby seal.
The ride home was oh so very different from the ride in. That mass of people was also traveling back, much to my discontent. The 100 trolley was packed nuts to butts, with the crazy guy among us. He was loud…everyone was loud, some cheering the Phillies, others telling this particular rider to shut the fuck up.
Finally…Gulph Mills; head pounding, deaf in the ears, glad to be off.
As I threw out my October Transpass, and searched for my mustang keys…
“I would rather have stayed at work”.
