Your Ride on MBTA Just Got Fun and This is Why

Yes, your ride on the T just got more fun.

I wish I could tell you to close your eyes to imagine this, but you have to read it. But even with your eyes opened, imagine yourself getting into an MBTA station. It can be either subway or commuter rail. On your way to the platform you spot a book. You grab it and you take a look at it. It looks interesting, but you wonder if someone lost it. You look around to see if anyone is coming back to get it. You check left and right, and

nope! No one is coming in your direction. Though, you see some people starring at you. The gaze of that guy with his headphone paralyzes you like a taser. You want to ask about the book, but it feels kinda awkward. The book looks really interesting and it would be a good help to the long commute that you have ahead. What do you do? Hmm, you think, “If I take it, these people will judge me. If I leave it, someone will take it.” You notice your fingers drumming on the back of the book. Your mind is quick to bring you the image of your grandma telling you not to take people’s stuff. You take a second look at the cover of the book and you see a sticker that says, ‘Take me, Read me and Return Me.’

“Oof!” That’s all you needed. It is for you to read and to return it so that someone else can have some fun and sooth his/her commute too. The MBTA is becoming a mobile library. The idea may not be new, but it doesn’t matter. SharleneM, who use to live in Somerville, just commented on a Boston Globe article about this #BooksOnTheT that in the 90’s there was a "Read Ride Exchange" shelf by the escalators at Porter Square T-Station with books for the same purpose. 

That was more than two decades ago, and I am sure you will like this new way of doing it better.

If I were the MBTA, I would ask my friend T-Rider, “How do you like me now?”