14 DAY TRIAL // Well, since I wrote about young age and old age last week, this week i thought about touching upon another matter that relates to one of them. This is a pretty annoying issue as far as I'm concerned and something tells me I'm not the only one, actually I think there are a lot of you out there who will realize they feel the same once they've read this article. These editorials are supposed to entertain you, but for me some of them are a way of defusing frustration against some of the seemingly unimportant problems of daily life. So... be entertained!
In Bucharest, senior citizens, to be more diplomatic and politically correct, are many and all-knowing about what's going on around. Problem is they travel by public transportation. A lot. A whole lot more than anyone would expect. How do I know this? Well, simply because I have been traveling a lot by public transportation lately too and because it doesn't take much to see this is real, it's become almost like a practical mantra thing, where you don't say something over and over again, but you SEE it over and over and you get the impression it's never going to end.
So, like I was saying... old people abuse public transportation in Bucharest. They use mostly the "surface" alternatives rather than the subway, maybe because they don't get a free subscription thing for it, like they do for the all-mighty worst-public service provider ever, RATB. They are ever present in buses, trolleybuses and trams: you use the bus in the morning, they are there, you use the bus in the afternoon they are there, you catch the bus to go home in the evening... yep, you guessed it, they are there! I've often wondered, while going to work in the morning, or while going anywhere for that matter, how come they manage to travel so much during the day? I mean, don't they have something better to do than crowd us in the morning while going to work, or stifle us with their conversations while going back home in the evening?
Ah, the conversations between senior citizens, now here's something interesting to talk about, using my long-time observations. What I've noticed is that most of them usually speak very loud and the sentences they use lack grammar(maybe because the ones who have coherent manners of expressions prefer to shut up), because they don't hear too well and because they want everyone to know about what they think: hey, it's a successful, yet extremely frustrating way of making yourself heard in a mass of tired, agonizing, problem-concerned people. Usually there are three main types of conversations: criticizing the bus driver for going too slow or too fast, prices and diseases and doctors. First type is probably the most common, they often complain about the fact that the bus driver is a crazy man, that takes them for potato sacks, instead of braking from time to time, that he is a speed maniac. The obvious consequence: when the driver is indeed speeding, and you thank God that you're going to reach your destination sooner, you wake up with a senior citizen or with several rolling over you, clinging on you (because they never cling on bars), stumbling on your feet and then looking you mean in the eye and claiming that you pushed them, that you're a young person who has no respect for them "What is this world coming to??! Kids these days... no respect! They push and pull you... What kind of an education did your parents give you? That is, have they given you ANY education??!" and all other bla blas that follow. Then, you look away, shut up and patiently wait for them to finish their arguments or that the bus or tram stop so you can get off. When the bus or tram or whatever other means of transportation is going too slow, they curse and complain they are going to be late for the bank, the market... oh and yes, the bank. Sometimes, I think they are the favorite customers of any bank in Bucharest, the ever present clients that probably deserve a job there for the amount of time they spend lingering in cues and putting bank clerks' patience to endurance tests.
When everything goes well and buses or trams go to their desired pace, and they don't invade your personal space too much, another thing happens: you find a place to sit, you sit, and then one of them comes near you and stares at you: this is the persuasion-by-non-verbal-means-of-expression technique so that you give them your place. If the staring-at-you doesn't work, they take a friend and they start talking about how rude young people are these days, about the fact that they don't know the rules to decent behavior and they don't want to give up their places to old, sick people. I call this the indirect-speech persuasion. Both of these techniques have not proved to be very successful because a third one has appeared lately: they come up to you and they ask you for your place. Just like that. Plus the "if eyes could kill" look. This is the direct-speech-approach, which I experienced not long ago. I had just taken the bus in the evening to go home from work and I was extremely tired, to the point of falling asleep in the bus. Plus my feet were hurting. At one stop, the bus became breathingly empty with people so I found a place to sit down. Then, at some point a somewhat old but richly dressed lady came near me and she was subtly pushing me in the arm with her body as if she was pushed from the back as well, but in fact it was nothing but a way to draw my attention to her. I realized what the purpose was for all of this and I thought about giving up my place for her but I was so tired that I gave up the idea. She waited and waited and waited and then... she dropped the claim in a visibly affected tone:"I want this place because I'm ill"... she wanted to give me a reason, a reason no one could actually dispute. I was so annoyed then that I swore to myself I would never sit down in a bus from then on because, otherwise, I would basically invite people like her to snatch it from me in a pretty easy and elegant way.
But let's get back to conversation types. Old people really love talking about prices, this being an area they are expert in. They know precisely where bread is a few hundred lei cheaper, meaning in the other part of town, meaning they have to use the bus to get there. See? This is a vicious circle. Surely, if they had to pay the ticket or the full-prices season tickets they would buy whatever they need from the shop around the corner and thus, would not use the bus or the tram. Then, there's another subject of conversation related to this one, that I basically placed in the same category: how well it used to be in the old days: they had enough money, they had jobs, they were well and they didn't have to think about tomorrow. Now everything is expensive and they can't do much to survive. I must confess I have mixed feelings toward this subject: while on one hand I understand them and their current situation, I feel sick whenever they begin praising the old regime because I remember all the cold winter nights with no heat in radiators or cooking stoves, especially around the holidays, the hot water that was rationed, my mom stalking shops for oranges and better chicken parts, the times that I ate in the dark or at candlelight because the electricity was down. We had no "acquaintances" at the grocery store, or the booking store, or whatever store since we were a family of intellectuals, and not the highly acclaimed working class.
But then again, what can you do to stop them? Nothing, but you feel like going to the loony bin. And speaking of loony bins and doctors, the third type of conversations are about diseases and medical personnel in hospitals: the most gruesome, terrible diseases, with all symptoms, causes and effects that turn your stomach around and doctors, nurses respectively that need bribes in order to take care of them, terrible conditions in hospitals, high fees(again!), rude staff. If you listen to them talking you would probably either feel confident you'd pass any entrance examinations at the Medical School or you'd never call for a doctor in your life or go to a hospital for that matter.
So, to all those who frequently use public transportation in Bucharest and who don't have enough money to pay for a cab every time they have to go somewhere, who hate the maddening car traffic in our capital, I have one piece of advice: either start jogging or save up for a bike!
