Meet Metrocard Millie

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Metrocard Millie

“Ugh! Gimme a quad espresso Scott.” Sara says at the register as she enters Starbucks.

“Sure Sara. Ann and Billy are over there.” Scott gestures to the corner. “I’ll bring it over for you.”

“Hey Sara! Didn’t think you were coming. What’s up?”

“Oh, you know. The usual; the MTA sucks.”

“Except the drivers.”

“You at least..”

“Bitching about the stupid celebrity announcements again?”

“Al Roker needs to shut the hell up.”

“Nah, just annoyed that my card didn’t seem to read right this morning, and then it only had 15 cents left on it. What am I supposed to do with 15 cents?”

“Give it Millie.” Scott says, as he brings over Sara’s espresso.

“Er..who is Millie?”

“You haven’t named your nipples again have you Scott? Because I’m not sure how I’d give your nipple a metrocard.”

“No. Millie’s a homeless person that comes in here occasionally. She walks around to all the subway stations and takes the discarded Metrocards hoping to find those nickels and dimes left on them. Then she takes a big pile of ‘em somewhere and gets them converted into cash.”

“Wow, they let her do that? I’d think they laugh at her.”

“I think she must be friendly with someone somewhere, or maybe they take pity on her. I don’t know. But she usually comes in here when she has a good day and gets a hot chocolate.”

“Well good for her. Reclaiming the probably millions of dollars the MTA saves by people discarding these.” Sara says, waving her 15cent metrocard at Scott.

“I asked her what the best stations were, but she wouldn’t tell me. Trade secret I guess.”

“Probably the PATH train stations. Especially 33^rd street.”

“Yeah. PATH fare is 25cents cheaper. Anytime anyone has to hop over to Jersey once they tend to end up with an extraneous dollar on their card or something.”

“I still have an odd-dollar amount from when we went to the Devils game in Newark. I’m hoping to go to another game and even it out though.”

“Well back to work guys. We should go get a beer or something tonight. I haven’t had one all week.”

“I had one already today.”

“Billy..it’s like 10am!”

“And I had one when I got home from work last night at 1am. So there.”

Billy sticks out his tongue at Ann.

“But I could always use another!”

Train Ride to the Complaints Department

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy

Subject: Local Train to the Complaint Department

“Ugh!” Sara says, tossing her bag on the counter as she arrives home. “I hate the MTA.”

“What’d they do now? You get a ticket for having your feet on a seat or something?”

“It was a combination of things really. It just led to a bad day. It started by my 30-day Metrocard running out without me realizing it.”

“So? It happens every 30 days right? How surprising could it be?”

“Well it wouldn’t be a surprise if I’d remember when I bought it, but I forgot to make a note of it, and I guess the month went by faster than I imagined. Some warning would be nice you’d think? Like if you had less than 24 hours left on the card? You listening Billy?”

Billy looks up from watching tv. Huh? Yeah, a warning would be nice I guess. I don’t know, mine doesn’t expire.”

“Well aren’t you just so special! You have to be able to do something at work. Put in a suggestion or something.”

“I’m just a worker bee. I have no more say than you do. I guess the card readers just aren’t set up to display that information. You do know they expire 30 days from first use right? So you can buy a second one anytime and just pull it out of your wallet when the first expires?”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Oh. Well still, a warning would be nice. The thing has to compare the current date to the expiration date, so it wouldn’t hurt to display the difference.”

“Well, the subway often seems no frills. It’s better than a lot of other places though.”

“No frills? Kind of like Billy’s cooking.”

“So I like simple foods. Nothing wrong with that. Why do I need sun-dried tomatoes in my pasta or fancy cheese on my burger?”

“Fancy food can taste good too. Another thing, would it be so hard to allow me to refill my 30-day Metrocard? It wouldn’t have been that big a deal, it only would’ve cost me a minute if the machine had decided to accept my credit card. Of course it decided not to be able to read it.”

“I get that a lot too actually.”

“Did you try a little sugar?”

“Sugar?”

“Yeah. You know, be nice to it. Treat it well. Maybe you were rude to it and it decided not to accept your card out of spite.”

“So I’m supposed to what? Flirt with it? Oh Metrocard machine, you’re so pretty! Here, let me clean the stray Metrocards off your head. There, isn’t that better?”

“Yeah, that should do it.” Frank says, laughing.