I was waiting for the subway after work today when I was engaged by a young woman. She had seen the bottle of Pepsi in my backpack.

���� "Did you know that one of Pepsi's stated goals as a company is to replace water?"

���� I had been lost in some kind of daydream, about skydiving I think (I've had more terrifying sleep-dreams of parachute complications and low openings) and was reaching into my bag for a pen to make a note of something when she saw the drink. But honestly, I don't really know what I was thinking about because it seems like that was ten hours ago.

���� The conversation started out tentatively, and a bit instructively, until we each started to get a sense of what to expect from the other. It ended 90 minutes later, by the turnstiles at Oak Grove, the end of the line, eight stops past my transfer station.

���� Como asi:
���� There's a pile of words for use in talking about consumerism and responsibility and choice, and it's on the floor of a subway train, among the feet. Two strangers are challenged to accomplish a conversation using this pile of words while everyone races north, underground, at 50mph. The train rattles and shakes and people hang on, as is usual on the subway. I grab the word "role," and I try to balance it lengthwise atop "judgment." She was more prepared than I at the outset, and thought to grab a few handfuls of the more useful words. I pick up the word "disconnect" and she eyes me scoffingly, as if to say "what a crappy word, good luck with it."

���� So we each hastily build a word-cardhouse while yelling over the subway din explanations as to why this is here and that there, or we have to clarify: "I wanted to say this, but there's no more of that word in the pile; you took them all."

���� That's how that went.

���� Afterwards, I got back on the train toward Downtown Crossing, switched to the red line, and got off at South Station, where I'd missed three trains. And where I'd be waiting another 90 minutes for the next train to Kingston.

���� Sitting in South Station, I wrote some bill-checks and mailed them, and I was reminded of a fun night I had at South Station three months ago.

���� I'd read in the paper that there was going to be a tax-night fiesta at the Station, with tax help from accountants, a string quartet, and free professional massage. I have kind of a tradition of ridiculous adventures on tax night, and this was during the same month in which the car was being ravaged by ticket leavers and tow trucks, and Becky had recently left and I was having sob-attacks every five minutes and I don't even remember what else but there was a ton of it, so you know, I was due for a good time. And tax night at South Station was going to be it.

���� Don't think that tax night was going to be it by way of any regular process of deciding what to do with a Tuesday night. Tax night was going to be it because it was going to feature H&R Block, and H&R Block was going to help me deal with my having lived and earned money in three different states (some money of which I didn't actually earn, thanks to the Selene Money Laundering Scheme) during 2002.

���� So I walked to South Station after work, only to realize that I was missing some things, including the DC forms. The only thing to do was to take the subway to the Boston Public Library and download the forms. Once there, I found out that downloading the forms would involve several preliminary steps:

1. Standing in line for a library card.
2. Signing up for computer time.
3. While waiting, purchasing the card that is necessary to print anything, and putting some money on it.

���� When my time came, I found the forms and set myself a-printing -- frugally though, since I'd not expected to be at the library that night, buying expensive paper sheet by sheet, so I only had a few dollars. (I'd expected to be having a super time at South Station.)

���� Eventually I returned to South Station and took a number. I waited for 2 hours with about 20 other people, reviewing and re-reviewing my work. I discovered that I probably wouldn't have to file the DC taxes after all. Eventually my number was called, and I was swiftly check-check-checked by the tax professional and her calculator. I'd done everything right. As far as my state taxes were concerned, she's a Massachusetts accountant, she doesn't know anything about other states, sorry. But yeah, she says, it looks like you're going to owe about $5,000 in all. That's rough.

���� And it turns out, I do.

���� Ay caramba. What an ordeal. To write that whole boring story. The good thing at that point was that I could do no more that night and I got to go home.

���� Anyway, you can imagine how much fun I was having waiting for the Kingston train tonight if this is what I chose to think about.

���� So the 930 train to Kingston arrives at 1030, I get home at 1100, and then I have to go clean floors for two hours before I get to go to bed. All this thanks to the bottle of Pepsi and my nitwitted willingness to have an hour-and-a-half conversation about it.


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