I got some shit today from my dentist’s receptionist via a friend of mine who’d just had his teeth cleaned about my latest Metro column HERE. Apparently the complaint had to do with the fact that I live in Dorchester, so I have no earthly right to be slagging off the South End. I mean, about their rubbish problem.

But I’ll tell you something. In Dot we use trash cans. You hardly ever see the kinds of scenes you see in the South End–with the rubbish strewn all over the sidewalk and spilling inot the street–in Dot.

Part of the reason is that people have space to store trash cans here, whereas in the South End, there’s nowhere to put ‘em. I understand the problem, but the solution they’ve come up with there–basically, do nothing and pretend there’s nothing wrong–just isn’t working.

By the way, I’m still thinking about what would make the T fare hike worth it for me…

I was asked today what would make the proposed fare hike worth it for me. And I am giving it some thought.

This morning the commute was horrendous. I mean, I left home a little early, but not as early as yesterday, and it was one of those mornings when everything went wrong that could, T-wise. You know what I said about the weather, and how people freak out whenever there is any? I don’t get it. I mean, it’s not like this is even real weather we’ve been having. Drizzle is not weather, people. Rain is weather. Drizzle, not so much.

So I got to JFK just after eight, and I’m assuming I just missed an inbound train, because the station was not too crowded. It was nearly a quarter after before an inbound train finally pulled verrrrrrrrrryyyyyy, verrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy slowly into the Braintree side of the station. The windows were all fogged-up, of course, and by now the crowd on the platform was thick, but the crowd in the train was even thicker. Some people on the platform squeezed in, but, look, just because I’m taking mass transit doesn’t mean I have no dignity. I didn’t even bother to try.

Then they announced that there was another inbound train coming on the Ashmont side (they have these new automated announcements telling you a train is approaching), so, of course, everyone ran up the stairs, across the station, and back down the stairs on the other side to get on the inbound from Ashmont, only to have a conductor tell us that the train was going out of service. So now, in addition to the crowd already on the platform, there would soon be a whole train deboarding onto the platform to join us.

This is when I came up with an idea that would make the fare hike more palatable to me, personally. I was so incensed–it was almost half-past eight by now–that, while I am not generally a violent person, I really wanted to do the slob who’d announced the train was out of service some kind of harm. These were the idle dreams of violence typical of impotent bourgeoisie. I’ll admit it.

And frankly, my friends, I’m just not sure the revolutionary moment is yet upon us. If I lunged, would anyone join me–or would they maintain their ironic distance? Damned irony! You will not find in the whole history of revolutionaries one ironic one! I thought it unwise to risk it myself. But then in my reverie of impotent rage I pictured the story on the evening news of some kind of spontaneous old-school uprising against the T–a “Boston T-party” if you will–something that would send an unmistakable message to the powers-that-be, and would make the original colonists proud.

But it’s not going to happen. At least not spontaneously. So what I was thinking was maybe that as part of the improvements in service that should accompany a fare hike (although, to be perfectly clear, the GM has said the hike is necessary to maintain “basic services” NOT to improve them) there should be an institutionalized T scapegoat placed regularly on certain designated platforms in stocks, to receive abuse from long-suffering passengers, like so:

Is your train delayed? “Schedule adjustments”? Well, here, finally, is your chance to express your frustrations to a real, live T employee. And the employees would rotate, so that they would all have an opportunity to develop their listening skills and expand their capacity for empathy, and we would all have the opportunity to, erm, help them grow.

If you’re a little queasy about pillorying actual people, each station could be provided with an effigy of GM Danny Grabauskas, or an anonymous dummy in a T uniform, or maybe the T needs a mascot (I’ve been saying this for years) whose effigy could be beaten like a piñata, cursed, sodomized, burned, stomped on, whatever. You know, something to do while you wait for the next inbound train in the a.m.

Which did finally come, by the way. But we all had to run back up the stairs, through the station and down to the Braintree platform again and stuff ourselves in like sardines.

So, QOTD: What would make it worth it for you?