Yesterday afternoon rush hour commuters were “overwhelmed and nauseated," by the naivety of a law-abiding Saskatonian.
At 5:00pm, freshman Devon Stevens reached the Willcocks station. He intended to catch the northbound 510 Spadina streetcar. It was his first time doing so.
He had just finished his last class of the day, CRI210, an intense and stirring criminal justice lecture.
Witnesses report having seen "a nervous tic" manifest on Stevens’s face as soon as he boarded. Stevens, a TTC rookie, evidently "knew from the get-go" that he lacked sufficient change to legally ride the streetcar. His eyes darted; his hands shook; his pockets were empty.
With pages of CRI210 lecture notes running through his mind, Stevens turned to his fellow passengers. He made desperate, whispering pleas for change. "Please," he murmured.
"I can't afford to get caught, man. I don't want to get deported; my mum'll fuckin' kill me. I can't shiver through another Saskatchewan winter. Please. Just help me out this one time."
Tom Pickering was one victim of Stevens’s requests “I was, like, the fifth person he got to,” said Pickering.
“I knew we all had change but we weren't going to give it to him. First rule of commuting: You do not pay for the streetcar. Live and learn.”
Once the streetcar reached Harbord, Stevens, with his head on a swivel, bolted from the streetcar "like a gazelle fleeing imminent death."
Story is developing.