A Flanagan Christmas

When it comes to making your Christmas list, and you are the youngest of nine kids, you AIM LOW. There is no Barbie Dream house and there isn’t an Atari on your list. You are smarter than that.

Growing up on Pond Street we had the best field in our neighborhood that had a huge hill….well at the time we thought it was huge….all the neighborhood kids would spend the whole day sledding…from early morning until dark…..we would make the sweetest jumps and would even drag pails of water from our houses to make icy, slick trails for our flexible flyers… you know the sleds that if you hit someone at the right angle you would slice off a finger.

My great idea that year for a Christmas gift was….skis….that way I wouldn’t have to share my sled with anybody. I would show up at the field with my sweet ass plastic "skis for kids" and WOW everybody…..I would imagine myself flying down the hill with ease as my friends sharing sleds would watch in awwwwe….

So I went home and told my mother that I wanted skis…not like Rossignol's or K2’s but like plastic kids ski’s we saw at Kmart, kid's skis, pretend skis.

On Christmas morning I thought for sure I would get my skis. I unwrapped every gift….. no skis. Then my Dad reached behind the tree for one more gift and it was for me!!! He threw it to me and I opened it quickly…tearing the paper from the box…tearing the box open to find the Sunday comics bunched up as stuffing... but nothing else. I said…”Mom it’s empty.” She said “No it isn’t keep looking” so I dug to the bottom of the box …..throwing the paper left and right…my brothers and sisters watching in sweet anticipation…..that’s when I found it….. at the bottom of the box…the words so neatly written like only a mother would…………. “Pretend Skis”

Ok It's been awhile.....

I got to the train after a nice long vacation…thinking for a minute that I may have missed it….but then walking up the escalator two people stood in front of me and road blocked me from walking up the escalator…just as something dripped on my head….what it was I have no idea because it wasn’t raining….then when I got to the platform I smelled what seemed to be a rotting dead pigeon……it was then it all came flooding back to me…..HATE.

I got to the last car where I always sit and took my seat. As I was waiting for the door to close and the bell to ring alerting us that the train was departing I noticed there was a rookie MBTA worker who was talking to an attractive girl in her early 20’s sitting diagonally across from me…she was sitting in her seat fiddling with her iPod while he stood by her trying to engage her in conversation…I was thinking great…so this is why we are going NOWHERE….I looked at her and then at him and I was like….ain’t gonna happen pal…move along…get this train moving…

He was chatting her up and he was acting all cool….the girl was smiling as they flirted back and forth….then the guy asked…all suave…. "What’s your name?”….she said “Luz”….then he said in true rookie style……. "Loose as in….Loose?”……………………FAIL!

Ding Ding…NEXT STOP QUINCY CENTER!

Here's a story..of a lovely lady

I was sitting on the train minding my own business listening to some Hall and Oates (secretly) on my iPod…when across the way I noticed this young girl in her early twenties who looked exactly like Jan Brady….not like “Channel 56 rerun Jan Brady” but “The Brady Bunch Movie Jan Brady”….she had long blonde hair and it was pushed back with a head band….I watched as she pulled a pink "hello kitty" hand mirror out of her bag..and then searched through her bag to find her lip gloss…great….I get to watch her apply makeup…she opened the mirror and began to apply her "wet n’ wild" lip gloss in a nice frosty shade of pink while looking in the mirror…then when she was done she smiled a big scary smile in the mirror….like a girl possessed……..it didn’t end there.... she put the cap back on the lip gloss…closed her mirror and put them back in her bag only to pull out her matching...pink...."hello kitty" HAIRBRUSH!.......I thought to myself if Jan starts getting all “100 stroke Marcia” on her hair I am going to flip the hell out!....but she didn’t….she looked at her brush and began to CLEAN IT on the train….She slowly pulled strands of her long blonde hair out of the bristles with her perfectly painted pink nails and tossed them on the ground like she was pulling petals off a daisy….. I watched as the golden strands slowly floated to the dirty, sticky floor... there was a guy standing beside her who was so deeply involved in his book that he didn't realize that the hair balls that didn't make it to the train floor…. clung nicely to his stone colored dress pants….I thought…am I the only one who is seeing this? Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a Hydroxycut daze and that my late TVland marathons are starting to go to my head...because it clearly goes unnoticed by other passengers. Once she got all her hair out of the brush and onto the floor…. and on the passenger beside her ….she then removed a tissue from her bag and began to clean the bristles ONE by ONE……like she was polishing Mike and Carol’s Sterling Silver Anniversary Platter … INSANE!



Hey Lady Brady! Are you telling me that your life is that busy that the only time you have to clean your "hello kitty" hairbrush is on the train? From what I remember you never had that much of a social life. I mean after all your ONE boyfriend George Glass was IMAGINARY!....By the way isn’t it Alice’s job to keep everything neat and tidy? What would your mother think? Jan don’t get me wrong I love the Brady Bunch….but you my friend are only setting yourself up for one thing…..a BRADY PUNCH!

Preaching in the Park

I am not much of a church go-er…..so let me tell you how friggin’ annoying it is to walk through Boston Common and listen to PREACHING!!!.....it’s amazing how people who find God choose to tell everyone else about it…OUT LOUD…in the middle of a park….at 9am…. it’s getting to the point that I am going to start carrying 40’s in my commuter bag…..I am sure walking up to one of these loud mouths with a nice frosty beer would get them to shut the hell up! .....besides loving METH…these guys also tend to be animal lovers….they love to feed the pigeons and squirrels…..Look! he’s like Jesus!.... feeding the masses…..of RATS.


I am all for people finding God…getting religious and joining a nice cult so they can leave Boston and live on a nice spacious ranch in the dessert surrounded by an electrical fence with plenty of Kool-Aid to drink….any place but here is fine with me….I don’t want to see you and I certainly don’t want to HEAR you! But this guy is there practically every day!...SCREAMING the word of God.

When I was on my way through the park today I discovered I could hear him loud and clear but I couldn’t see him….as I got closer I realized the guy had a friggin’ mic and was holding a little speaker in his arms. SERIOUSLY!!!!!??? They guy now has a SOUND SYSTEM???...Who gave him a sound system? The funniest part about it was watching him balance the speaker…..and the open bible…..while trying to preach into the mic….wait…..Shouldn’t he KNOW the bible by heart by now?


Hey DELIRIOUS DEACON! Do you think it is OPEN MIC night on the Common?....or do you just fear that your words are not being heard? Believe me they are HEARD and IGNORED!....we hear you say “Christ is Lord!” but what it really sounds like is “Christ! This guy is ca-razy!” …by the way FATHER “I NEED A FIX”…do you know how much meth you could get if you pawned that sound system?...just sayin’

Same Day Same Dress

Did you ever have one of those mornings when you alarm goes off and you lay there in bed going through your Rolodex of “101 excuses to not go to work” in your mind?…..I usually watch the weather in the hopes that maybe Beacon Hill was swept away by a massive Tsunami….never happens…NEVER!.....I was having one of those mornings….well every morning is one of those mornings…it is probably because I live in a dungeon, a basement apartment with no light except for my little street level “Laverne and Shirley” window above my bed…..I can spend a day at home and never even know what the weather is or what time of day it is. …maybe I should start referring to it as my “bomb shelter” rather than my "dungeon"...People might think I offer services in my underground world, services that I just I don’t offer… (Insert sound of bullwhip here)… yet

After watching Meredith Vieira the “Cougar of morning TV” for about 20 minutes I slowly dragged myself out of bed….thinking to myself…what the hell am I going to wear today?.....I am a creature of habit….I like routine…but I have gotten a bit too “routine” with my clothing choices for work….to the point that my friend will call me at my desk and say “It’s Wednesday so I bet you are wearing your brown dress with the brown strappy heels”….which is when I tilt my head down to see I am…in fact…..wearing my brown dress with the brown strappy heels….as hard as I try to not fall into that cycle it never fails….you can always tell what day it is by what I am wearing…..

I always leave my TV on…it’s on while I sleep and it’s on until I leave the house in the morning…I like the noise…but it is also a huge distraction….and is probably the main reason why I am always running for the bus….I get all my news from the Today show….which means I tend not to know too much about what is going on in the world…only how far along Lauer has progressed with his hair plugs and how many times Ann Curry can say good morning in 30 seconds….I think her record is five…..I tried setting my clocks ahead to get me moving but…hello!!!.... I know they are set ahead and I always say to myself well its really 7 not 7:10 am so I have ten more minutes….hip hip hooray!......I need a bandit to sneak into my place and change all the clocks by setting them 20 minutes ahead without me knowing…it’s the only way it would work…..I showered and rushed to dress….throwing on my navy blue dress…which is always a bitch to zip up I just cannot reach it….ugh I fumbled with it getting it half way up and realized I had no idea where my shoes were….I live in an apartment the size of a postage stamp….you would figure I would know where everything was….I rummaged through my basket o’ shoes and found them and headed out the door….running to the bus stop.

I had an early meeting so when I got to the State House I made my way to my office tossed my coat on the coat rack and hauled ass to my meeting……I texted my friend to save me a seat……I got there just in the nick of time….out of breath I made my way through the rows of seats to my friend where I took a seat...one of my friends was sitting behind me and tapped me on the back…I was like....why can I feel a cold finger tapping between my shoulder blades?..........OMG! I never zipped up my dress!……I quickly tried my best to stretch my arms behind my back frantically trying to locate my zipper…my friend behind me quickly came to my rescue and zipped my dress. I was so embarrassed….I turned to my friend beside me who fought to hold back laughter in the room full of people….and he said “Rough morning?”…then he slowly looked at me...head to foot and said “Let me guess….its Thursday!”

Scratch and Sniff......

Don't think for one second that just because there is a "roof" and/or an "overhang" at a T stop that that means you won't get rained on.....for that is a total misconception.....in fact the exact opposite is true....you will be soaked.....its like you're standing under a hut made out of sticks and twigs....water cascading down.....on...your....head...I can imagine its like a great big car wash....washing all the pigeon poop down off the make shift roof and onto our heads..........fabulous!.....to make matters worse there was no train....so we waited and waited in the cold rain for 20 glorious minutes until the train finally arrived.......

When I got to Park Street I had zero tolerance for the stairs....so I took the escalator.....as I was approaching the escalator I noticed a guy in a fluorescent vest with a broom and dustpan in his hand....I then remembered the VOMIT!......but thought hey they must have cleaned it up by now....even if this guy works once a week....he must have noticed it and cleaned it up.......we got to the bottom of the escalator and I got on behind him.....and just beyond us....to the right.....I saw it......THE VOMIT!!.....IT WAS STILL THERE!.....but then I felt reassured after all he was the janitor....so I'm sure he was on his way up to clean it......as we got closer......he saw it.....and you know what he did?.......he took his broom free hand and TOUCHED IT.!!.......then he SMELLED IT!!!!.....you know what he did after that??? He went up to the top of the escalator and swept up cigarettes and pigeon feathers!

Hey Janitor Guy! Thanks for getting right on that! Way to prioritize.....its only been there a flippin' week...don't tell me its the first time you saw that....it looks like a crime scene out of CSI......let me guess you're not the "vomit cleaner upper"....you are the guy they send by to "evaluate" the situation.....did you really have to touch it....then smell it....to know that it was vomit??? .....and not fresh vomit but hard, dry, crusty vomit.....Really? Is that what they teach you in janitor school.....scratch and sniff?

Guess who is leaving a LOVE NOTE at the escalator tomorrow????

One Day at a Time

Did I really say that I was happy to be back last week?...that I missed riding the bus and the train?....really?....well I just got a nice bitch slap from reality this morning. Although the morning started out ok….I didn’t have to dress like I was making a trip the Arctic Circle so that was pretty sweet….the bus ride wasn’t so bad….no one pissed me off…..and the train wasn’t packed and the ride was pretty uneventful…..until of course I got to Park Street Station….now I have been trying to set some goals for myself recently and one of them was that I wasn’t going to take the escalator up to the street anymore….I was going to take the stairs…..but then I thought “baby steps’…or more like LAZY STEPS….so I took the escalator….one day at a time right?...like how about Tuesday….that works for me…..I turned up my iPod…if there is one thing I can’t stand it is running into someone from work who wants to “talk shop” on the way up the Hill…..loud music in my ears allows me to ignore them...nicely.

I made my way through the mass of people to the FAT TRAM……"Journey" was playing so I was more into “Don’t Stop Believing” then anything else….until of course I reached the bottom of the escalator and got on….and that was when I saw it…..right to my right…..running between the handrail and the wall……was a nice dried up river of PUKE! This river ran the whole way down the escalator…… Seriously!?!......Like isn’t there someone is charge of cleaning up puke? I mean even Dunks has a kid who is charge of mopping up puke!

The only thing that came to mind as to how this could happen is this….somebody spent their “spare change” on a mother lode of crystal meth of maybe a couple of bottles of Boons Farm…..and I am guessing they had enough “change” left over to hit the local Burger King for a meal deal…..from what I can see he got the chicken parm sandwich….hold the fries……..before he spewed his guts on the escalator….apparently he didn’t make it to the Dunks at the top of the escalator as he had hoped.....if there is one person that should be taking it "one day at a time" it's this guy....ROOKIE. Needless to say I will be taking the stairs from now on…..