I boarded the train home and sat down near the front. The driver waited for me as I ran up the platform ramp; his traffic signal was red so he could afford to idle there.
On the train, I read my JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library) book and tried to absorb the words by going over them twice. It all starts meshing together. Our train seemed pretty light until we got to Powell, and stopped.
I kept reading, settling in for a delay. The driver left his little container and exited the train, going dog knows where. My book was at turns boring and interesting. I could only take in fragments about expressions and so on. More and more people stepped into the idle train. I looked down into the tunnel ahead and saw nothing blocking the way.
This woman got on and sat across from me. She recognized a man who was one of her former students on the train. I secretly recognized her. We used to share a train stop out on 43rd avenue back in 1999-2001. She was there at the same time as me, wearing a hat and dragging a wheeled briefcase. Her face always looked all mean and pinched. She was always focused on getting a certain kind of seat in the usually-empty train in the mornings. It’s a 50 minute ride downtown from there. She would climb on board and make a beeline.
So it was interesting (to me only) to hear her open her mouth and talk in this rather pleasant voice to her former student. She is a teacher at a film school in the city. They discussed movies and directors and so on. She had her hat in her lap and ate red grapes out of a plastic container.
The train finally started moving, now totally packed. I gave up reading my JSTL book.
We emerged to the surface and stopped at Church St. Some people got on, others got off. Another woman entered the train at the front door and immediately began berating the driver about being late. She had one of those bum-packs around her waist. She grabbed the pole with two fists and argued with the driver. The teacher remarked, “It’s not his fault, these things happen.” But the bitchy lady didn’t hear and just stood there fuming.
At Stanyan, the teacher’s former student got off the train, leaving her to grade papers. The subject of the paper was Mike Leigh’s “Secrets and Lies.” God I am so nosy. But it was just inches away, in a very crowded train. The bitchy lady had moved back to where my seat was and was still angry. She actually pounded on the pole attached to my chair a couple of times. How tragic that the train delay only affected her, and affected her the worst!
Finally my stop was coming up. I considered it an interesting ride and a delay of 15 minutes didn’t bother me (though of course it has in the past, but there’s still no point in wasting angery energy over what you cannot control). I tried to stand, holding my purse and a bag of junk from work. I didn’t have anything to hang on to really, so I balanced and at the same time, helped an older lady maneuver into my seat and not fall down as the train lurched along into a 4-way stop. I was glad she got my seat and not bitch lady, who AGAIN struck the pole with the heel of her hand, as though it would help. Teacher also assisted the elderly woman into the seat, and then shared a smile with me as I tried not to fall down.
As I got off the train I said thank you loudly to the driver. So did a couple other people. I think we were trying to somehow make up for bitch lady’s abuse.
Home now. Hungry. I have eaten today: a muffin, coffee, handful of pretzels, four tangerines, and a couple chocolate cherries. Yeah. Should have a snack at least before I tackle the next batch of peppermint pinwheel cookies.
I’m not sure why but I enjoyed thoroughly the 45 seconds it took me to read this post. I just got in my office after a 25 minute “commute” along residential neighborhoods/school zones. I live in a city of 150K, yet we have zilcho practical public transportation. I would take it if I could.
Anyway, you brought back commuting in DC (for me) and how much I loved letting someone else drive and wondering about people’s lives in the 17 stops between Eastern Market and Vienna.
Thanks for helping me smile despite an already trying day.
It was my pleasure! Being on public transportation is honestly the only time of day that people are closely confined with each other, with strangers, all with the same general purpose — getting somewhere. It’s interesting to me because there aren’t really other times or places where that really happens. If you are shopping in a mall or something, everyone is moving around, you’re not all forced to look at one another or be next to one another.
Some people hate the train for those same reasons, they get claustrophobic or misanthropic or paranoid. But I think it’s good to be exposed to many different people and different stories. I think that is one thing that a town built for cars-only has taken away from our people.
That’s why European or other foreign cities are so great — they were all built before cars. So most people walk, take public transit, or bicycle. Sure people drive, but they don’t experience any of the sprawl or cars-only culture we have in the U.S.
It’s another reason that I will always insist on living in an urban area or a walking-friendly (college) town.
omg I think I’d wolf down a whole batch of those cookies if I only had what you did to eat, hope ya had a big snack!
I hate bitchy people. They frusterate me. Like you mentioned, things happen, its not that guy’s fault. I especially get angry when the big lady manager at Wendy’s yells at the workers cuz they don’t serve up fries as fast as she’d like. I almost said something once…I think I will next time I see mean, rude crap like that. Just because you are inconvenienced does not give you the right to treat people badly! Gr!
Nah, you’re not nosy! Its not your fault they were right next to you hehe. Mike can retell a person’s entire conversation that he hears while waiting in line at a fast food place – its crazy but interesting. The only bad thing is when you hear stuff that’s so out of normal context…i.e. at school the other night, I walked past two girls who were talking and heard the phrase “I wouldn’t try it unless I was bleeding…” uhuh…er…
It’s amazing the things people will say into their cellphones while on the bus or train in front of twenty strangers who can hear (almost) everything. I try to keep my public cell conversations short and bland.
I ended up making 30 cookies last night, hopefully enough for my little gift bags I’m putting together. Brian and I split one though, because I had to make sure they tasted ok — I changed the recipe slightly by not including the crushed candy canes this time because I didn’t like the fact that they are pretty much made out of corn syrup.