Monday, January 15, 2007

Second Class Citizen

As I braved my commute this morning, I was given a stark reminder of how I ranked on the food chain of transportation. Recently, I've been ditching the bus and walking the mile to work every day. Today in the bitter cold, I checked on the next bus and decided to give walking a shot anyway.

As I made my way up the hill, I encountered mountains of dirty ice chunks. The roads had been cleared for easy passage of the automobiles and all of the gunk had been pushed up onto the sidewalk. For several blocks, I couldn't even determine where the sidewalk was supposed to be as I attempted to make my way across the slick, gunky mess.

Meanwhile, the snowplows made another pass over an already cleared street. Is there any more explicit way that I can be told that my method of transportation isn't even worth consideration and, even worse, can be undermined for the benefit of another?