(#32) The "Stretching" I Should've

Surprise, surprise, I met another crazy person on the T last night.

He was on older, thin gentleman who had a bounce in his step despite the cane he was using. I spotted him in the T station before getting on because he was very loud, had a brimmed hat with two huge fake flowers sticking out of it, and had a small American flag tucked into his shirt collar like a makeshift bib.

This gentleman ended up sitting five seats away from me when the train came. At first, I tried to just read my New Yorker but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something odd. The old guy was gripping a vertical handrail in each hand, his legs stretched out before him, and he was slowly sliding off the seat to the floor.

Thinking that he was slipping off the seat and needing help, I asked him if he needed help. He was, after all, pretty old looking and had a cane. The man replied that he was okay, that he was just stretching. He lowered himself onto the ground and began swinging his legs around, saying "You got to remember to breathe when you stretch" while making a bulgy-eyed, bitter beer face as he breathed in and out dramatically. "This is how I stay young," he said. "I'm 75 years old. But I know how to take a hit!"

I should've . . . told the guy I wanted to learn how to stretch like him and then followed his example, throwing myself on the floor of the T but stretching in ways that the man would not have approved of--just to make him try and explain himself and his unusual methods.