From Mindspillage

Commuting into Arlington from Herndon, I would spend 2 hours out of every weekday on the bus or the Metro or waiting for same whether I wanted to or not. This would seriously suck *except* that I was able to do the majority of my reading in transit, and being engrossed in a book discourages crazy strangers from talking to me. So as usual, I got on to the Metro, Property book in hand, and sat down in one of the few empty seats next to a heavyset middle-aged man reading a professional magazine of some sort. He glances at my casebook.

"Don't read that."

It being before noon, I'm not too quick on the uptake and just look at him a bit confusedly.

"Run!"

"Ah, you're a lawyer, I take it?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Your look of abject horror at my reading material."

He tells me to get out while I still can. But I like law school, I protest. So did he, he says, but he never thought he'd be spending the ten years doing what he does for a living; he should have considered digging ditches instead.

"The weather is nice for it, and it's cheaper than a gym."

The train pulls up to my stop. "Off to consign myself to my terrible future."

"I'm serious, run."

He seemed pleasant, good-humored, and terribly in earnest.