"LRT" stands for Lunatics Ride the Train

My daily morning commute to work involves getting on the LRT* downtown, riding it across the river, and getting off at the university. I squeeze my way out of the crowded train doors and am propelled up the escalator camouflaged among the hoards of university students hurrying to their morning classes. Most mornings I spot someone I went to high school with. I remember their faces, but not usually their names, and I never speak to them. We sit across from each other plugged into our respective ipods pretending we're not recognized. I imagine them wondering what happened to me after high school, wondering what it was like to go to university in Scotland if they even knew that that's where I went. I'm always impressed by the fact that they don't seem to have aged a day since we graduated. Still the same kids living at home with their parents, riding the bus to school, clutching the lunch their mother had packed for them that morning. It's probably an unfair assessment. I'm sure that they've all grown up just as I have, and I acknowledge that my perception is more about me feeling good about the decision I made to leave right after high school than it is a reflection of or a judgement about their lives.


One day I was on my way home from work, and as the train approached my stop I decided on a whim not to get off. This was back when I was still culture shocked and trying to re-learn the city. I realized that while I had ridden the train to the university and back nearly every day, I had never gone past the downtown core in the other direction. So I stayed on. I crossed over the tracks (literally and figuratively) and rode the train all the way to the end of the line. I peered out the window at the part of Edmonton where the other half lives. And I watched with fascination as a mother and her son sitting across from me ate their dinner. The mother carefully placed her backpack on her lap, gracefully unzipped the bag, and pulled out their meal. She unwrapped a bottle of water from within a plastic shopping bag – a protective layer which I wouldn't of thought necessary, but which for her seemed only natural. She took out a knife and fork, and cut her son's piece of pizza into bite sized chucks before handing the styrofoam take-out box over to him. She then proceeded to eat her own slice of pizza, holding it by the crust with a napkin to avoid getting grease on her fingers. And when she was done with her pizza, she took out a can of pop. Almost obsessively, she wiped down the can with a clean paper napkin. Still unsatisfied with its cleanliness she reached into a pocket in her bag and pulled out a straw. That's right. She drank root beer out of a pop can with a straw. But this is where things started to get weird. After carefully unwrapping the straw and placing it in the can, she dropped the paper wrapper on the floor. They finished eating, she re-wrapped the water bottle and mindfully placed in right way up in her bag, she wiped down the straw and put it back into it's pocket, she scrutinized her son's face for crumbs and scolded him for getting tomato sauce on his sleeve. And when their stop came they got up and left; leaving the mess of used napkins, the straw wrapper, the pop can, and the styrofoam box behind them.

Shortly after they got off I noticed a woman digging in her purse for her keys as we approached the next stop. Now above ground, she pointed her remote car starter out the window to what I assume was her car in the 'park and ride' lot next to the LRT station. I had forgotten those existed – remote car starters that is. They're a Canadian thing.

I was now at the end of the line, and I waited for the train to go back in the other direction again to take me home. The way back was less eventful, but I did notice a man standing in the doorway wearing a baseball cap that said “Redneck” across the front. When he turned around I noticed that he had the same thing embroidered on the back of his trench coat, and I silently but seriously questioned my decision to move back to this city.




*Edmonton's pathetic excuse for an underground/overground subway a.k.a. “Light Rail Transit”. It only has one line, and off peak it only runs every 15 or so minutes, give or take as much as it likes.