Mr. Topham Hatt will be very cross when he sees this.

During the summers when I lived in Boston with my Grandma Betty, we would take Saturday trips on the MBTA trolley system, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. She would park her car at Cleveland Circle, and we’d get a Green Line train from there to Park Street, change for another Green Line train to take us to Science Park, and then I could spend all day at the Museum of Science. Or we would take the Blue Line and I would spend all day at the New England Aquarium. You see where I’m going with all this.

Now comes the news that the MBTA has added a rather cheeky twist to their subway cars. And it’s probably the most distinct thing associated with the MBTA in maybe 80 years.

Take a look at the cars today.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Those are big fat googly-eyes on the front of that Green Line trolley.

Apparently this was spurred by a suggestion from a couple of Boston straphangers a few months ago, to make the trains more personable and fun to ride. The googly eyes are on several of the MBTA’s rolling stock, and boy oh boy do they look … well … they look … yeah, they can look, because now they’ve got eyes.

You know this needs to be addressed. All this needs is a miniaturized George Carlin on a conductor’s suit (or a miniaturized Ringo Starr, if that’s your generation) and the stories just write themselves. And all I can imagine is a storyline that evoked the MBTA’s most memorable public association 80 years ago.

“Here on the Island of Boston, the trains rolled from point to point with not a care in the world. But one train, Robert, was a very cheeky train. When a rider named Charlie got on at Kendall Square and paid his fare, Robert accepted it. But when Charlie wanted to exit the train, Robert said to him, ‘Hold on, you need to pay me one more nickel.’ Charlie said, ‘I have no more money, I did not know that the fare went up by five cents.’ Robert then snarled and said, ‘Well then, if you don’t have the money, you can’t leave the train until you do. So go back in your seat and let me ride on and do what I do.’

“Now the news of this eventually reached Mr. Topham Hatt, and he was not very happy with Robert for the way Robert treated Charlie. He thought that Robert overstepped his boundaries, and was being cheeky for the sake of being cheeky. But it was against Mr. Topham Hatt’s rules to pay for a passenger’s free ride, so the most he could do was contact Charlie’s family. And to this day, as Robert passes the Scollay Square station, Robert stops long enough for Charlie’s wife to at least bring him a sandwich. Why Charlie’s wife never brought him the extra five cents to leave the train is another story entirely, but we can address that on another episode.'”

Okay, I’m dead. Ha ha ha ha ha ha…