My new spring obsession is clothless and colourless. It’s also easy on the wallet and BMI. All you need is a Metro card and a magnet or compass to seek out frantic people trying to get to work as fast as possible. They lack aplomb, to put it semantically.
Usually it starts with the Metro doors opening and the exodus spilling out towards the escalator. Like a cooked pierogi, inevitably a player will rise to the top. Their gate markedly increases as they squeeze or weave by people too close for stranger comfort. They have to get through the gates and out of the station as fast as possible, probably to get a better spot in line at Starbucks or to get into the office before their wife calls to tell them they dropped one of their four kids off at the wrong school (“What can I do honey, I’m already at the office?”). Whatever their reasons, they’ve unsuspectedly become the next participant in Trailgating.
Having passed me, usually whilst brushing up against me or knocking my dangling lunch bag out of their way, I now activate my speedwalking legs and obnoxiousness. I stalk my prey, not letting them get more than 50 feet or so in front of me. Once we’re above ground the chase begins.
At this point they’re as obvious as a fish out of water or Donald Trump at anything. Eschewing crosswalks and traffic patterns they walk as fast as possible, somehow thinking in their heads that by not full out running they are being inconspicuous. Wrong!
By this point I have hopefully narrowed the gap to 20 feet, taking advantage of the fact that they don’t expect someone to be following them at a matching crazy legs pace. As with any hunt, sometimes I lose them as they forge through an intersection in the nick of time, and always after the red stop hand has gone from flashing to solid. Next time foil!
The ones that don’t get away? I am on their heels now. We’re doing a streetwalking samba, two people walking stride for stride at the same breakneck pace as nobody around them notices or cares. This is about personal gratitude, not recognition.
Now, the kicker. What makes it all worth while. They pass a subtle head turn or glance in your direction. Why is this person walking frenetically next to me? What is wrong with them? Hopefully that triggers the thought in them, “Why am I walking this frenetically?”. It never does. They counter with a dirty look instead. That’s Trailgating, and I’m hooked.
