Backseat Driver

I’ve been looking, but I haven’t seen the streetcar named Desire. They do name their streetcars here. Maybe it's too obvious of a name for a streetcar, like naming your dog Fido.

For all the torment it puts me through waiting and dealing with the cow-eyed, cloying tourists, streetcars almost make up for it with their disgustingly charming wood paneling and equally disgusting tree-lined routes.

The price isn’t bad either- “a dollar and a quarter” per ride as opposed to New York’s $2.00 subway rides.

I’ve also discovered the natural streetcar order:

Tourists sit in the forward facing seats in the front and middle … or crowd near the front entrance in intoxicated bunches.

Locals sit in the middle and rear so as to avoid the tourist clumps and the spilled hand-grenades.

Die-hard locals, and every person in a restaurant uniform I’ve seen, sit in the far back, where the seats look like the benches in a subway.

For the particularly saucy locals and the occasional intrepid (or stupendously drunk) tourist, there is the rear seat, a padded swivel chair the conductor sits in when the car is going in the opposite direction.

This seat is mine. I like to put my feet up on the sill and show everyone how much cooler I am. Then I scowl at all the people in cars behind me.

Bringin’ the New York flava.