Last night on the way home after a 12-hour work day, I got on the orange line at Downtown Crossing as usual, headed for Stony Brook. It was cold. Very cold. When I got on, I partially listened to the announcer voice saying something about shuttling, but mostly ignored it as I read my book.
Two stops later, the announcement was loud and clear "This is the last stop for this train. Shuttles are waiting at street level to take you to Mass Ave where you can board the train again. There is a medical emergency and a police investigation at Back Bay station."
Great, I thought. I'm never getting home. I emerged onto the street at New England Medical Center, and there were well over 100 people on the street waiting for these mysterious shuttle buses that weren't appearing in any hurry on this frigid Boston evening.
After complaining to my mother on my cell, a woman said, I've been waiting 30 minutes. What? Forget it. She quickly said, Where are you going? Want to share a cab? After that, I don't really know where the other two women came from, but soon we were 4 and we were in a very warm cab headed toward Roxbury and JP.
We dropped the first woman off at Roxbury Crossing, and then I got out just on my corner. Each person that got out paid 25% of whatever the meter read at the moment, which worked out just fine. Olivia snd Lynn were in the cab with me and we chatted and laughed about getting home so quickly afterall.
I will most likely never see these women again. Together, we laughed in the face of those who say that Boston is unfriendly, unyeilding, unpersonal. Last night, for me, it was. It was cold, and we were bundled up and soon, because we spoke to strangers and joined together, we were home.
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