Ava, I hope you will appreciate this when you are older.
I’m sitting in a wading pool, holding you up as you splash and kick around. Next to me is a woman, bent over and picking at her big toe.
You might not think this is a big deal. Who cares?
Please allow me to put this into context for you. To say I don’t like crowded public places is an understatement. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that public services like pools are vitally important to the survival of any community. In fact, in a VERY abstract way, I am happy that this woman can do whatever she is doing to her big toe (not going to look) on this fine Saturday afternoon. However, is it rude of me to say that just don’t want to be here when she – and everyone else in the pool for that matter – is?
From my curmudgeony perspective, the problem with public transit is the public.
Seriously, who wants to sit on s streetcar and listen to someone going off on their cell about what they plan to do to their boyfriend now that he’s been caught cheating? That really happened. Am I being a little selfish? Antisocial?
Fine. But my point is, Ava, that I’m sitting in this crowded wading pool, in my bathing suit (actually I’m not sure it would qualify as a bathing suit. Does a freshly-washed running shorts/white briefs combo pass as a bathing suit?) and I actually WANT to be here, in all my white, pasty, antisocial glory, because it all makes you giggle like that.