From Here to Lechmere

Moscow may crow about its subway system, and Parisiennes make love in the "Metro," but nobody likes the MTA. Armed with a home-town Newspaper, the pedestrian has merely to descend into the Harvard Square station to reason why: the price of a ride has risen to twenty cents.

Eventually, when every garage contains its second car, the sores in the earth will heal, and the kiosk in the Square will be razed to make way for an electronic traffic cop with magnetic adenoids. For the present, however, the subway czars have added a touch of irony to their extortion by offering five tokens for ninety cents.

Like an extra figure in an intimate photograph, the fifth token will lie stealthily in the pocket, only to reappear invariably when something else is sought. Craftier folk will attempt to stuff it into telephones, slot machines, parking meters, and the like, without notable success. At last, the aggravated token holder will trudge through the turnstiles once again, step from the platform, betwixt the sliding doors to disappear forever in the oblivion of a one-way trip to Jamaica Plain.