Just one of My Peeps
As I was commuting home last night I was walking along a platform at North Station when I saw my doctor approaching a train for his ride home. Now, I’ve always liked my doctor, but this made me like him even more.
You see, I’m not a big fan of cars. To me, they’re simply mobile death machines that just happen to have the ability to get you from point A to point B. But aside from that, they cause congestion, smells, pollution, and even aggressive behavior among many people. And, now with the popularity of SUV’s over the past decade, they’re absurdly and offensively wasteful in terms of fuel.
Now, I know that Boston’s mass transit is not the most efficient and that there are numerous pockets out there with little to no access to reasonable transit. I also understand that there are countless commutes that would be shorter if done by car. In those cases, I fully understand the need for cars (though still don’t understand the need for gas guzzlers unless you transport heavy materials).
Anyway, my doctor always felt to me more like one of the guys versus a doctor. He’s quite knowledgable in an unpretentious way. In fact, shortly after Matt was diagnosed with Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia a few years ago I went in for a physical and just mentioned the acronym HHT and my doctor knew exactly what I was talking about. Meanwhile, Matt had been going to the same doctor for a decade with all of the symptoms and she STILL wasn’t able to diagnose it (a separate geneticist picked up on it, fortunately).
So, I really liked the fact that, despite being a doctor (at Mass General, no less) he uses public transit to get to and from work as opposed to a Mercedes or BMW. Then again, he could have been riding the train that one day only because his Jaguar was in the shop and his wife needed the Porsche to meet her girlfriends at the country club for lunch and tennis lessons. But I’ll stick to my theory – it makes me feel better about the world.
4 Comments
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like on ER, the doctors take the ‘el’ to work at the hospital. its so much more urban, more in the vein of ‘keeping it real’.
maybe your doctor drives a Hummer too, and drives his wife/mistress/D-L brutha/twink boytoy around in it. maybe its bright yellow too.
Hmm………The Er docs, yummy.
Course that doesn’t say anything about the speed boat and atv’s he runs in the good weather……
If I didn’t take mass transit, I wouldn’t have half the commuting stories I have now. Where else can you find a lady who wore a pot on her head everyday talking about how it blocked out the mind-control signals?
You know my feelings on public transportation. Every day is student driver day on the T. I dislike my space infringed upon. But your doctors sounds marvy. Almost good enough to live in Ostah-ville.