Bedford Ave Token Booth Man
By B
Grade: F for Fucktard
Man, what an asshole. What is the reason for the people who sit in the booth in the subway station? WHAT IS THE REASON? I guess the primary reason for them is to watch out for terrorism. But the other reason is to help you out when everything is fucked up. At least it should be. Unfortunately, too many of these people seem to think that their main and most important job is to remind you that you are a foolish, terrible person who does not deserve to ride the subway in the first place. The man in the booth at Bedford Avenue is the worst culprit of all. I am not going to describe him in detail, but God damn him. Or G-d damn him, as I would say if I were a real authentic Williamsburger.
I was going to call his supervisor. I got his badge number and everything. (He refused to give me his name. "Oh no," he cackled. "Oh no! I’m not telling you my name!") Then I realized that there is no point in calling anyone’s supervisor because the whole thing about supervisors is that they are just bigger asshole versions of the people whom they supervise. This is a lesson I learned from my years of working in retail. In general, it seems unworth it to bother with the MTA at all, because, aside from when they are illegally hiding money in order to raise fares, they seem to spend most of their time working at making my commute as miserable as possible. If I called to complain about this very discourteous man in the booth, I'm sure they would give him a commendation for Outstanding Fuckiness. Maybe they would promote him to supervisor!
So apparently my Metrocard is broken. It is damaged. It’s sort of ironic that it be damaged now, because for the longest time, with old ones, I would just shove them in my pocket, leave them on my floor, use them to pick my teeth, et cetera, and I never had any problem other than the fact that I was constantly losing them. However, about five months ago, I started making some changes in my life. The main one was that I began dutifully placing my card in my wallet after using it. This, I guess, is how it got to be broken. (Henry says it is from rubbing against the wallet every time I put it in and take it out.) But I didn’t know it was broken the other day when I tried to get on the train at Bedford Avenue. In fact, I had just used it to take the bus, and it had worked perfectly fine. Still, in the station, I swiped it and swiped it, and the turnstile just said "Please swipe card again. Swipe again at this turnstile." And like that.
So I went crawling to the man in the booth. I donned my best shit-eating, I’m sorry I’m such an idiot grin, because I have seen the way these exchanges go down and it is never pretty. The man in the booth glanced at my card in a cursory fashion and then tossed it back out at me, with a scowl. "It is damaged," he told me. "You have been using it inappropriately."
"Oh," I said, doing my best to be contrite, even though I knew that I had been using it very appropriately indeed. "Well, what can I do about that?"
Of course, my question remained unanswered. I love people who respond to an innocent, sensible question with a scornful demand.
"Can you see that it is damaged?" he snapped at me.
I looked at the card. I squinted at the magnetic strip. I was really taking it seriously. I wanted to understand! Unfortunately, it looked perfectly normal to me. No big gashes or chips. It looked like a magnetic strip. "Not really," I finally said. I wasn’t going to lie!
The man in the booth was starting to get agitated. "Can you see that it is damaged!?"
I looked again. Well, maybe it was a little bit browner than usual. Does that mean damaged?
"Maybe," I said. I was very unsure. I needed something to compare it to.
"There is no maybe about it! You either see that it is damaged or you don’t!" the man shouted. I am not exaggerating, he was really yelling. At me! If you’ve never met me, let me say that I am a very retiring person and don’t like to start trouble in public. "Now," he fumed, "do you see that it is damaged?!"
"I guess," I said. I was starting to feel badgered into making a statement that I did not believe in. I could not, in fact, tell that my card was damaged.
"You guess!? YOU GUESS?!" The guy was fucking pissed now. So I gave in.
"Yes! Yes!" I groveled. "I see that it is damaged!" I felt uncomfortable saying it, because it was a total lie. I should have stopped there, but I was really trying to get to the bottom of the problem. "But I just used it on the bus and it was fine…" I went on.
Oh no I did not. It was the wrong thing to say. I think he would have been less pissed if I had said that I was an associate of Osama Bin Laden and that I had a canister full of smallpox in my backpack. The guy looked like he was going to smash his head through the bulletproof glass and bite my face. "YOU USED IT ON THE BUS!? THEN GO TAKE THE BUS!!" he screamed.
There was someone standing behind me. I went and spent two dollars on a SingleRide, hoping that the $70 I’d already spent on the monthly wasn’t completely down the toilet.
I am so sick of these tiny, daily humiliations. I hate that there is nothing you can do about it except suck it up and buy your two dollar singleride. Or take a cab. And don’t tell me to have some sympathy because the poor guy sits in a booth all day so of course he’s in a bad mood. Guess what? I worked behind the register at the Gap for like 5 years and I was a jerk exactly one time, to a lady who deserved to be punched in the face.
Let me tell you, this guy has been a complete, unrepentant asshole more than once. How do I know? Because the very next day, coming home from Manhattan, I got off at Bedford Avenue. And as I pushed through the turnstile, I saw a small, pretty girl at the booth, holding out her hands in a pleading gesture. "YOU WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE?!" the guy was screeching at her. "THEN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE AND GET OUT OF MY FACE!" As I passed the girl, who was slinking off, defeated, to go buy a single ride, I gave her a sympathetic look.