The Gentleman

I had to work a late one today. Burn the midnight oil if you will. Well when I finally wrapped up what I needed to finish, I left for the DART station. It was about 5:15 pm.

For those of you not in the know about the Dallas light rail system, it’s an electric train known locally under the acronym DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transport) and it runs from Plano and Garland through Downtown Dallas to South Dallas.

I ride the DART everyday going to and fro from home to Downtown Dallas. Luckily, my ride is unusually short, only 3 stops or about 15-20 minutes. Many people ride it for over an hour each way. One very common thing about the DART is that few people, including myself, actually get to sit down while riding the DART. It’s due to the lack of seating and the limited number of individual train cars DART chooses to drag around each day. I think DART would rather pack people in like sardines than have everyone relatively comfortable sitting on a stainless steel seat.

From the roughly 1000 DART rides I’ve had in the nearly 3 years of living in Dallas, I’ve probably only actually sat down about 50 times total. So today when I had the rare opportunity to sit, I hurriedly snatched up a seat, knocking over a toddler on the way. (kidding) So finally I get to sit down and rest my tired legs since I’ve been sitting all day and I start my 3-stop ride home.

Sitting to my right is a 40-something year old lady. In my rush to sit down I accidentally kick her backpack (rucksack if anyone from England is reading this). I probably wouldn’t have even known that I had kicked her bag but a backpack full of cassette tapes makes a distinct sound when bumped. By the way, people still listen to tapes? In any event, I apologized to her and she says not to worry.

By this time we’re already arriving at my first stop. The doors open and a lady and a guy get on. Immediately a tall, relatively weird looking guy sitting across from me gets up and offers his seat to the lady. She kindly refuses because I think she would rather stand and talk with her man friend. The tall guy then sits back down.

If you’ve ridden the DART nearly 1000 times and are an avid people watcher like I am, people start to look familiar and you seemingly get to know them, without actually knowing them, and get to know their mannerisms and such. This particular lady and guy are both single, at least they don’t wear wedding rings, but they always meet at the same stop and they giggle and laugh at each other until I get off at my stop. A downtown affair? I don’t know. Possibly……….

Sorry, well the train starts to move down the track again, and suddenly the 40-something lady taps my knee and says, “Ahh, that was so nice of him. He is SUCH a gentleman. It’s rare that men do that these days.” She was referring to the tall guy that offered his seat to the lady. I gave her a kind, half-ass smile, nodded my head and turn away from her. Of course she said it loud enough for the tall guy to hear and an ooold lady sitting across the isle from me to hear as well. After hearing the compliment, I looked over and noticed the tall guy grinning. Now the 40-something lady and ooold lady proceed to chat about how men like this are rare these days and this and that. Remember, I’m sitting kinda between these ladies. Meanwhile, the tall guy is listening to their conversation the whole time and continues to grin this goofy grin like a kid eating ice cream or something. Here I am stuck in the middle of this trifecta with two ladies talking smack about men and a guy eating up his newfound attention.

But wait, something just occurred to me. Was this 40-something dogging me for not offering my seat to the lady? Surely not. I mean, the guy got up so fast I didn’t have a chance to. Ohh well, I chalk it up as another random situation on the DART.

Well a few minutes later we come to stop number 2. We stop and the doors open again. This time 3 ladies and a guy get on. The tall guy, wanting more ice cream, immediately gets up again and offers his seat to a lady, who subsequently sits down without saying thank you or anything. (Man I hate that) Of course the 40-something is keen as to the tall guy’s actions and she taps me again (repeat: AGAIN) and says, “Such a gentleman don’t you think?” Once again she and the ooold lady agree the tall guy is a gentleman and the tall guy, still listening, is still grinning.

Now I could have gotten up and offered my seat to a lady that would have in turn been unappreciative, but it was too late. The damage had been done since stop # 1. If I would have gotten up, that 40-something lady would’ve won. No way! I had too much pride on the line. Plus, I was getting off at the next stop anyway. It’s not like I would be taking up that seat all the way to Plano.

Seriously, any other time, I would have gotten up like I’ve done many times before, but I wasn’t gonna do it this time. I was on a mission to spite this 40-something year old leg-tapping nuisance and prove to everyone else in the area that I should not be associated with Mr. Grins who was obviously addicted to the attention because he was still grinning after all this.

So today I wasn’t a good person. So what? Maybe it had something to do with me working late, but it was most likely due to the 40-something trying to tell me to do something without actually telling me to do it. She was trying to nudge me to act in a way in which she wanted me to act and I wasn’t playing her game.

Good Riddens.

Note: The 40-something must not have been from around here because Dallas men almost always wait at elevators for women to enter first, hold doors or give up seats.