See Something Say Something

See Something Say Something

...is the antiterrorism mantra of the New York City MTA, and is copied here is Boston by the MBTA. The idea is if I, as a pedestrian, see something suspicious that may be akin to terrorism, that I should report it to the nearest authority figure; Cop, security guard, Pope, whatever. (I find it rather unsettling that untrained civilians are both the MTA and the MBTA's first line of defense on terrorism, but I digress). This mantra (I like that word, "slogan" you are fired) is drilled into the heads of train and subway riders every single day in the form of announcements, pamphlets, signs, etc.







"Kirk to Enterprise,
See Something Say Something Indeed!
Kirk out."







Fast forward to today. I am walking in Downtown Crossing in Boston. It is perhaps the busiest area in town for foot traffic. I grab an ice cream and sit down on the benches in a little park outside of Borders Books. The park is dedicated to the survivors of the Ireland Potato Famine of the mid 1800s and has several statues of starving and withered Irish folk. It's very unappetizing actually. Can't they just put a statue of a potato with a red crossed-out circle? I mean....We get it, there were no potatoes, people starved, lot's of em. We don't need emaciated statues to remind us. The ironic part of it was that while sitting in Potato Famine Park, I was scarffing down a hot fudge sundae. It was irony-ific!

Back to my point though, I go to the barrel to dispose of my trash, and I notice inside is a backpack, and rather lumpy looking backpack at that. Now, today was about 80 degrees and sunny in Boston, and this was at the height of lunch hour, so there were at least 500 people within 50 feet of this trash can. It was an ideal target. So, of course my brain kicks into See Something Say Something mode (3 straight years of daily rides on the MBTA will do this). I casually look around for a cop. None of course! But if I was driving 10MPH over the limit, the scene would resemble the end of The Blues Brothers I'm sure.




There's never a cop around
when you need one. Just ask this guy.






So I decided to go into Borders and alert the security guard. He walks with me to the trash can, pulls out the backpack and reveals.......Nothing inside but an empty Vodka bottle.

The end result of my See Something Say Something experience? I felt like an ass. I am pretty sure I heard people mumbling and laughing at me as I tried to slink away from the scene as non-chalantly as possible.

Terrorists 1 Beetle 0




The official symbol of the
See Something Say Something
campaign






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