This will be a new (now official) series of The Green Tea Diary: ‘True Toronto Stories’. They are true, memorable exchanges that I witness between strangers.
Southbound subway. Sunday. 1:30pm.
It’s obvious from the moment he passed through the ‘whoosh’ of the doors. He’s spotted her. With pretty, near white-blonde hair, blue eyes, & uncommonly rosy, pink cheeks, she’s every hetero teenage boy’s initial-wet-dream. He settles his long, gangly limbs in the seat directly across from her.
I watch from behind my sunglasses, silently thanking my earlier self for being too lazy to deal with the harsh lighting of the TTC. This is going to be interesting. I can feel it.
He toys with his iPod. He glances pointedly, and repeatedly at her, with a brashness that usually eludes newly-minted college men. Perhaps this one was a big shot in his high school and has yet to fail. Whatever the reason, however, he gets up, and crosses to sit in the seat adjacent to our blonde beauty.
“Excuse me?” he asks. She either doesn’t hear him, or is pointedly ignoring him. “Excuse me,” he tries again. No answer. He waves a hand at her. “Excuse me!” She takes out her earphones. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you. Yes?”.
He asks for some pretty straightforward directions, which she gives him, with a smile. He asks what she’s listening to. “Lady Gaga”, she replies. He shifts forward in his seat, and they chat briefly about pop music. She smiles more. He leans in further.
Then he asks the question that plainly gives away how green our young buck is,
“So, uh, how old are you?”
“I turn 33 next week”, she laughs, perhaps now more acutely aware of where this has been going in subway-romeo’s mind.
The lad is floored, but I’ve got to hand it to him, he handled himself well. After a moment to gulp, he replied, “Well, happy early birthday then!”.
Having been witness to the entire exchange up until now, I’ve been clocking the young man’s face closely. The brilliant thing about young boys is that they wear it all out on their faces. It’s only later in male life that the mug-filter develops and one is left guessing. I watch his face progress from ‘damn, another one bites the dust’, to ‘hey, this could have a Mrs Robinson-esque up side!’
With balls the size of watermelons, our young hero continues to chat up Ms. Blonde. I watch for the next few stops as they make jokes, talk about travel and make pleasant. I’m beginning to wonder if she is merely humouring the guy, as I get up to step off the train. As the doors close behind me at my stop, I turn around for one last look.
She’s laughing and touching his arm.
