4-October-2009 12:10PM

You know those assholes didn’t recently exit an aircraft from some faraway city, or just have been released from duties as employees, or happened to be traveling through the SEATAC airport as if it is a hot bed of transit transfer points…

So what the fuck are they doing here anyway? Tell me, why are they here, these fucking “gangstas,” these bullshitting dicksuckers of society taking up space on Route 194, packing it up full with their oversized coats against a paltry sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit to conceal God-knows what sort of figment in order to compensate for the inadequacies of digiorno?

Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, for I find myself on board the newly installed Sound Transit Light Rail, having been able to hop on a free bus to the Tukwila International Blvd. station, and from there ascending three sets of steep and angling escalators where a train sits waiting to take us into downtown Seattle. I had briefly asked one conductor about my current bus pass, to which he responded, “that’ll be good,” in jolly tones.

“Awesome,” I replied reacting at being saved the hassle of having to purchase a separate ticket…

When the car arrives at the Rainer Beach stop, it ends up pausing for a period of time bordering on exorbitant, which translates to slight annoyance. We drift forward a few feet then come to an unexplained and unfathomable halt. It’s all very curious, and perhaps one would think it so new still that it is subject to bugs like any other system au courant.

Further observations yield (as expected) that up to Othello Station the train has been subject to a few traffic lights, as autos are (although if I was on the route 194 right now, I would’ve said, “the autos is”). This creates for a slow-going creep through South Seattle up Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Another intriguing item on board is that the conductor with wagging untucked shirttail has yet to even hint at a glance to verify payment for services rendered, where he only perpetually and literally hangs off a handrail by the front-starboard door. When and how an exchange for this transit sacrament is enforced appears as a mystery (or afterthought). Hence, as soon as we make a stop at Mt. Baker Station, a wheezing and coughing inebriated once-upon-item-matron sits one seat down on my own side-facing row, who at first runs into two steps leading up to the higher platform and almost keels over from her inhibited motor skills (assuming there was any to begin with), which halted her progress to a dead-head and elicited the response, “SHEEE-IT!”

Most excellent.