Good Grief!

There’s some debate about whether putting trolleys back onto Route 15 (Philadelphia’s Girard Avenue) is a good thing, but whatever. The trolleys have returned, they look all cool and retro, and they replace those smoke-and-grime-belching busses.*

During many years of riding SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) busses from Fairmount to Center City, I never encountered characters like those on the Route 15 trolley. On Saturday afternoon, a woman sitting in the front seat interrogated the driver nonstop from Fishtown to Fairmount:

Well, I don’t know why they bothered with these trolleys. These things are slow. If you miss one, you can run to the next stop and still get on. A lot of kids will be late for school, and a lot of people will be late for work. So how fast does this thing go? A lady driver told me last week that they can go 60 miles per hour? Is that true? Well, that’s what she told me. You can only get it up to 35 mph? Why do you go so slow around the turn? Is this easier than driving a bus? It seems like you don’t have as much to do—it looks pretty easy. Doesn’t this thing just drive itself?

The return trip featured a man named Petey and his unnamed friend who didn’t get a chance to say much during Petey’s monologue:

Yeah, I call myself Petey, but don’t you call me that. I get pissed, that’s what. And when I’m pissed at you, you’ll know it. I don’t blow my stack or nothing, but I just won’t talk to you. And after a while, you’ll know I’m pissed.

One time, a guy came around calling me Petey. I had been givin’ him the silent treatment, and he showed up at my house one night yelling “Petey’s mad! Petey’s pissed!” all mocking-like. After a few minutes of that, I went out with a golf club and knocked out two of his teeth. Then I told him to fuck off and stop bleeding all over my goddam sidewalk. He ran away pretty quick, and I yelled after him, “Petey’s mad! Petey’s pissed!”

Of course, I’ve calmed down a lot. God told me I had to change, or I was gonna die, and no one can change you except you. And religion.

I got off the trolley before getting the details of Petey’s religious conversion, but I’m sure he entertained the rest of the passengers all the way to Port Richmond.

*It did appear that handicapped and elderly patrons were having a hard time boarding the trolleys. I hope this problem is only a growing pain—the last thing SEPTA needs is to become even less user friendly.

PS The trolley picture is from SEPTA’s website, but I’m unable to muster up the appropriate guilt for this blatant act of thievery.