To constrict and serve

By Mary

One of the things I've always loved about public transit is the strange camaraderie that can develop among people who normally wouldn't dare to make eye contact with one another. Take the Raccoon Incident at 5th and Main several months ago. Where else but at a bus stop could you find a guy surveying his fellow transit riders on the wisdom of feeding his sandwich to a hefty 20-lbs.-or-more raccoon currently making his way down a tree? (The consensus from our group of TriMeteers: For Chrissakes don't lure the thing to you, but only a wuss screams and sprints into traffic if it waddles near him.)

So it was after this year's Starlight Parade when I arrived at a 56 stop just after 11 p.m. to find a guy soliciting feedback from fellow riders as to the best way to smuggle his 5-foot python ("His name is Ennis. Wanna pet him?") aboard the bus. The guy was earnest, and Ennis, half in a backpack, half wrapped around his owner's arm, was phlegmatic as only a creature capable of crushing, swallowing and digesting a small child could be. The group waiting for the bus was less so, and suggestions ranged from the duplicitous ("Dude, just say he's a service animal. Say he helps you with shit. They gotta let him on then.") to the profane ("Man, get that shit the fuck away from me! It's a fucking SNAKE!"). Ennis' owner finally jammed him entirely into the backpack and got him on board without a word to the driver. If anyone noticed that the pack was writhing and that no one wanted to share a seat with it, they didn't say anything. Ennis and his owner departed near Wilson High School without incident.

Fare thee well, Ennis. I sure was happy to quit you.