6 PM: I finish work and wander out of the building, taking my time to chat with coworkers about various inanities, because I am both affable and collegial.
6:07 PM: I get on the crowded 16th St. MallRide.
6:12 PM: The MallRide creeps up on the Stout St. Station, stopping at every block like your tiny-bladdered, biodiesel-powered grandfather on a roadtrip. I am a little nervous, because the H-Line leaves at 6:14, and if I miss this one I have to wait 15 minutes in the cold for the next one, which will cause me to miss my bus when I get off at Nine Mile, which will in turn relegate me to another hour in the cold. I dislike the cold. I lament the fact that I have a long-standing policy to never again run to catch buses and trains and stuff - a policy I adopted because I hate the feeling you get when you run and still don't make it, when you're left standing there like an asshole and everyone around you knows they just saw you fail at something you wanted, and they get to sip that delicious pity/schadenfreude cocktail on your dime. And that is one cocktail I will not fucking spring for. No sir. Not me. Also, I have always thought that there is just an inherent sadness to running for the bus/lightrail, because when it boils down to it you are sprinting like an action hero just to get on a dank, smelly thing that will get you to your job as an insurance underwriter on time. I will gladly run to get on a rocketship to the moon. But not for the bus or the lightrail. Unless they are going to the moon.
6:14 PM: The MallRide finally gets to the Stout St. Station, and I see my H-Line to Nine Mile already sitting there, looking antsy to depart. Fuck. I get off the bus and sprint across the street like a dirty hypocrite, showing the congregated panhandling homeless what pathetic desperation really looks like. I pull out an express pass as I run, planning to turn this lame betrayal of my principles into a cool-looking win. I will slip the ticket in the validator in one magnificent thrust and bolt inside the closing doors like a deadline-conquering megachampion. (Oh, hyphenated adjectives.) But of course we all know that even the coolest-laid plans are foiled by the goddamn validator. So I end up standing there trying frantically to get this little piece of asshole paper stamped as the train doors start their customary "It's go time, bitches" beeping. I feel dumb, but to be fair it's like if at the end of the 100 meter hurdles, every runner has to pull out a wrinkled up dollar and get a vending machine to take it in order to win. Shit gets hard. This simple motherfucking thing all of a sudden feels like trying to slide a brick under a door. Having already abandoned my plan to be the awesomest lameass in the history of running to catch things, I figure I might as well abandon the desire to be a dignified adult who rides legally. I take a few hard steps, shove my hand between the closing doors, and trudge up the stairs. I am a stupid out-of-shape freeloader. I briefly think about how much we implicitly trust door-sensor technology, to the extent that we go around shoving our hands inside things that would fuck us up if the sensor were broken. I picture the lightrail dragging me by the arm screaming into a wall. In the outside world, which is thankfully not subjected to the stupid things I think about, the automated female voice reminds everyone to get away from the doors so the train can depart, and I know that she is talking about me. I plop down next to some lady who probably saw my whole sad ordeal. We leave.
6:16 PM: We pull up at the Convention Center Station, the only station on the route where the automated voice says "Remember, you must have a valid ticket, transfer, or pass." I get paranoid that the enforcement dudes are going to get on and embarrass me. I'll be sitting there talking to some pudgy 50-year-old guy in a fake cop uniform, trying to explain how I really tried to validate my pass, but the train was leaving, and I couldn't miss this lightrail - not again. Not for you, not for anybody. I will show him my blank pass, and try to reason with him that I wouldn't carry one of these around and not validate it. That would be dumb, man. I will tell him it's cold outside. I will start crying and ask him what he would do if I were his son. And he will give me a ticket and kick me off the lightrail because he doesn't talk to his son anymore because his son is "a homo". And everyone on the lightrail will be whispering about me, judging me, with their fucking laminated monthly hologrammed passes that you don't ever have to validate. Then they'll get home and have beef stroganoff and tell their spouses over dinner how some guy got caught without a ticket on the lightrail today and wept like a girl. I can't handle this. I will not be the "Oh, something actually happened today that was different from my affair-inducing day-to-day drudgery" story. So I decide to do something about it. I bolt the train as soon as the doors open, looking left and right and left for the green glow of the validator thingies. I see one that's kind of far away, and I start to sprint for it. But I hear the beeping start, and I realize that I have no shot. I hop back on, defeated, dodging the doors exaggeratedly as if they're picking on me. I am now on the next car over. This time, I just stand in the doorway, muttering to myself and waiting for my next shot.
6:19 PM: Colfax at Auraria Station. The busiest stop. Lots of commuter students, and it'll take them a minute to get on. This is it. I bolt again, running down the line, weaving through sane people and looking for the goddamn validators. I don't see them. I get like 100 feet from the lightrail, whipping around in circles. I mutter "Where the fuck?" three or four times. The doors beep. I turn and run again, catching them and prying them open like I am strong. But I am not strong. I am weak and sad. I am also in the same car I started on. A few people seem to notice that I have now sprinted up and gotten on their train twice within three stops. I hope they just think I'm really fast.
6:25 PM: Self-loathing. I ask myself why I even care if I get caught. It's probably 50 dollars. I don't really care about money. And RTD inexplicably does not check tickets very often, in my experience. So my main concern really is what these people would think of me on the off chance that I got caught. These people. These coughing, sniffling, dead-eyed people. Why? I decide to abandon my original quest for validation (deep double-meaning alert!) and just look around for anyone who stands out and makes me less bummed that I'm concerned about what everyone thinks of me. There is a serious, distinguished-looking old man in a suit and tie writing something in a notebook. There's a guy whose respect it might be reasonable to give a shit about! I really want to ask him what he is writing, but I am not really a talk-to-strangers type of guy. But still: Is he one of those people who writes a daily poem or something on the lightrail? Is it about me? A haiku? Can he capture the universality of my predicament in 17 syllables?
Or iambic pentameter?
But I never ask him, so I'll never know, and I'll never talk my way into a surprise internship with JP Morgan Chase, and I'll never get to date his granddaughter if he has one. That's what I get.
Also around me are two college-aged Asian girls with designer bags and rhinestone-peppered cell phones. Their conversation flits between how guys who wear pants for multiple days in a row need to make sure they wear underwear or the pants will smell disgusting, and an in-depth discussion of Tiger Woods (his wife: "pretty hot"; mistress: "ugly skank"). They laugh a lot. I get off at the next stop and walk one car over again. When I get on, I see a woman I saw earlier. She chuckles at me. I wonder how much she knows, and whether she can be trusted.
6:44 PM: It's been a while now since I actually got off the lightrail seeking the elusive validators, but I've still been looking out the window at each stop, just in case I might be able to see one, or at the very least catch a glimpse of the RTD cop waiting at a station, allowing me to step off as he got on. But at Southmoor, I finally see my chance. The validator is 10 feet from the door, glowing a friendly green. I take a deep breath and step off. I walk over, slide my pass in, hear the telltale beep, and stroll back aboard with a newfound sense of belonging and ownership. I am finally legal. I have my green card. No show today, assholes. I am valid.
6:47 PM: Regret. I made it all this way, then I validated my ticket two stops from Nine Mile? I'm such a pussy.
Conclusion: I am incapable of being happy with myself. But maybe someday, blah blah blah, find the kind of validation that lasts. The End.
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