I was rude to a young man yesterday. I had to keep from
looking at him as I walked past afterward in order not to apologize. I do generally
apologize when my Old Stuff gets the better of me and I am a jerk. The thing
was, what I said was probably true, if not terribly compassionately rendered. And
more, the incident set a match to a smouldering resentment that I have been
carrying, like the people of the Stone Age once carried nuggets of living fire
in a satchel as they traversed unyielding fields. (I may have made that up but
I am pretty sure I heard it in one of the trillion popular science programs I
have listened to over the years.
In this most recent manifestation, the resentment is toward TransLink,
or whoever it was who came up with the plan of installing a payment system that
A) doesn’t work and so robs countless people of extra fares and B) violates the
privacy of myself and any other person who, by virtue of illness and poverty, is
forced to live on the provincial disability allowance, for our card use is on their records.
You see the sour grapes slowly revealed? And I shall warn
you, I am not in the mood to set a metaphor and stick with it. Indeed, I am
about to change it again.
The trouble is, beyond the fact that there are some real
issues here that have been more than adequately addressed by others, I have an
age-old arrow embedded deep in my side, and this Compass Card system, and that
loud-voiced, officious young man who forced me to go back and use my card when
he could see I had it and could see that the doors of the turnstile were open, and
could see that I was burdened with parcels, twist the arrow painfully, and I
want to shout.
