Wednesday I had plans to visit friends in Murray, but first I decided to kill some time by riding the new University/Mid-Jordan TRAX line. I read my book until the train left Fashion Place, after which we entered new territory and I looked around curiously. Around that same time, a teenager boarded the train, sat across from me, and opened his Monster energy drink, which made a loud popping noise that caused a couple of people to glance over. The kid made some comment about bomb scares in post-9/11 America and I gave him a courtesy chuckle. Had I gone back to my book, that probably would have been the end of that interaction, but the kid (who was roughly 18) jumped on my inactivity to start justifying his caffeine addiction by comparing it to amphetamines. I took the bait and reminded him that excess caffeine consumption is difficult on the heart. My response somehow gave the kid an opening to start talking to me about his decision to never have kids because he didn't want to bring any children into a world like this one but he also didn't want to do anything to benefit society. He seemed quite convinced that not having kids was the best thing for him to do.
I wasn't in the mood to listen to the philosophical rantings of a teenager, so I got off at the stop just before the end of the line. I knew that the kid was just exploring the new TRAX line as I was, but I also knew that UTA schedules its TRAX trains so that one departs from the end of a line just as another arrives. I figured by getting off a stop early I could catch the train that would soon arrive from the opposite direction, while the kid would be stuck at the end of the line for 15 minutes or so.
PROBLEM #1: My train was 5 minutes late. In other words, the train I'd hoped to catch left the station I hoped to catch it at just as I got there.
No matter, I thought, and I worked out a plan for getting back to Murray without awkwardly running into the kid again. We'd been sitting at the front of the train, so I could expect he'd be at the front of the train as it returned. I could hide behind the shelter wall at the rear end of the station platform as the train returned, then climb on the back of the train without the kid ever seeing me.
PROBLEM #2: TRAX trains reverse instead of turning around, and the kid didn't move to the front of the train while he waited.
I could see as soon as the train stopped that the kid was in exactly the same seat as before, and worse, he was looking right at me. I climbed on the train and awkwardly answered his question "What were you doing there?" with something about exploring the new unfamiliar TRAX line. He seemed to accept this answer and soon thereafter was telling me of his plans to meditate himself to death. Yes, that is "meditate" and not "medicate." And he plans to do it the very day he turns 50.
That is, unless he has children.
