The little trolley that couldn't

Tour trolleys are a great way to see the sights in Boston. They are also -- particularly if you go with the one we did -- a great way to get stranded on the opposite side of the city from where you are staying. We fell into the typical tourist trap of signing up at the first trolley booth we saw, not realizing that this outfit was run by a bunch of puffer fish in the Indian Ocean. They had a suave spokesman, for sure, who promised all kinds of freebies -- a second day at no charge, a water tour at no charge, bathroom facilities at an exorbitant charge, etc. (Just kidding.)

In fact, it was the bathroom thing that should have tipped me off. The "office" of this trolley place was no more than a hole in the side of a building, but the sign proclaimed "Visitor Center," and I assumed it was the visitor center for the city, and I was looking forward to using the restroom that was sure to be located there. Imagine my surprise at finding, not only no public restroom, but no restroom even for the employees. As I said, this place was small.

"We should take the duck tour," I said to Joe. "Everyone says that's popular."

But Joe had not been impressed with the duck tours, which are conducted aboard a contraption that is both truck and boat, that we had seen in Philadelphia. Their drivers tended to do things like lead their groups in a rousing song of "YMCA" with both hands off the wheels.

So, eager to get started on our tour, we ignored all the warning signs of this particular trolley company and signed up. We were herded into line with all the other trolley tourists, most of whom were smarter than us and went with other trolley establishments whose trolleys routinely completed their circuit around the city in a timely manner. Each time a trolley showed up we tried to get on one of them, but once the drivers got a glimpse of our tickets they told us, in solemn tones as if they were very sorry for us, that we wanted the white trolley.

And so we waited for the white trolley.

And waited.

And waited.

People started offering us coins and bits of leftover food as they walked by, figuring we had been there so long we must be beggars.

I can tell you that there are many, many other white vehicles in the city of Boston besides trolleys. As we waited, we would look far down the street and, seeing a large whitish object, go into Excited Mode, which involved jumping up and down and running in little circles around the garbage can. Inevitably, the white thing would come closer, and it would be a garbage truck, or painter's truck, or some other disappointing conveyance. After a while I was ready to board anything white that had a driver, or even to knock the driver off the vehicle, but Joe persuaded me, through threats of jail time, to wait.

When our trolley finally did come, the driver was, predictably, youngish, with long hair and an even longer attitude. He said he was "early." Early for what, I couldn't fathom, unless he meant early for the 25th century. He proposed that we wait for more riders to board. I was tempted to tell him that there would be no more riders besides us, that they had all either died while waiting at the stop or been turned into statues that the pigeons were using for target practice. He seemed keenly interested in a young couple who had been on board when we got on -- I guessed that they had boarded when they were in elementary school and had been riding all this time, the rest of their school group having finally despaired of ever stopping and thrown themselves out the windows -- and grilled them about their livelihoods, home states, travel plans, whether they still had their appendix, etc. Us, he ignored entirely.

When we were finally underway -- miraculously, having indeed gained a few more hapless riders -- the driver gave us those little bits of information you would expect to hear on a tour of one of the oldest cities in the U.S., such as that he, the driver, had grown up in Mississippi. In vain we waited to hear anything of interest about the sights. We intended to get off at the first stop in Cambridge so Joe could visit some bookstores that he hoped would carry books on such fascinating topics as complex diversionary fuzzy functions, but after a while Joe whispered that he thought the driver had driven through that stop, and at the next red light -- at which the driver had to stop -- we hurtled ourselves through the door, bruised but thankful to have escaped.

After happily exploring Cambridge and Harvard, we thought it best to take the T back across the river rather than wait for another trolley. That turned out to be a wise decision. We would still be there if we had waited for the trolley, probably eligible for in-state tuition.

By the end of the day our feet were staging a rebellion and our short memories had all but erased our bad experiences with the trolley. We waited at stop #11, intending to get in on the rest of the trolley tour. We didn't expect much, but we had paid for stops #1-18, and we sure intended to get our money's worth. Again, we waited. This time we also called the trolley office, where a not-too-chipper voice informed us that the trolley would arrive at our stop at approximately 3:30. She declined to say which day at 3:30.

When 3:30 had come and gone, we started walking to the previous trolley stop, hoping to get a glimpse of our white trolley along the way. Instead, we came upon two young men who had been waiting at stop #10 since approximately two days after they'd been born, and had seen no evidence of our trolley. Plenty of the other trolleys, including the duck tour, had of course been sighted.

"We should have taken the duck tour," I said. Joe did not reply.

We waited some time yet, with Joe calling the office again and being assured the trolley would come in 15 minutes, but of course it did not. We finally left, sorry to abandon the two young men, who no doubt would remain there until their hair turned white.

Later that evening we saw, and I am not kidding, one of our white trolleys being towed away.

"Well, that explains that," said Joe.

By the end of the next day we had walked the entire city what seemed like twenty-two bazillion times. We were tired, far from our T stop that would take us back to our inn, and in no mood to hoof it. We decided to give the trolley one last chance. Actually, it was also our last chance to get back in time to grab our luggage and catch our plane. Surely the broken-down trolley we'd seen the night before couldn't be the only one on the fleet.

We were extremely fortunate that the trolley came this time within 10 minutes. It was full, and no one got off, probably because they were afraid they'd never be able to get back on, and we sank into our seats. It was the same driver, but at this point the puffer fish themselves could have been driving and I wouldn't have cared. Our two young friends from the day before were also aboard. All signs pointed to this being the last remaining trolley since the death of the one we'd seen the day before.

As soon as we were within jumping distance of our T stop, we again flung ourselves out the door. We had to go right by the trolley booth where we'd gotten our tickets. There was a swarm of tourists around it, and I was overcome with a desire to yell and scream at them to NOT give away their money to those puffer fish. In the interest of public safety, however -- ours -- Joe restrained me.

As we descended into the depths of the T station, Joe admitted, "We should have taken the duck tour."