Commuterrant

Will Commute for Blog, Part 2

I landed a new job, thank goodness. Even better, I will still have the pleasure of commuting to work - but no more Green Line! I'll be taking the Red Line, just five short stops to Kendall Square. I'm sure I'll still have plenty of T-insanity to blog about, although I will miss the particular brand of insanity that only the Green Line can offer.

Until May 30, I am considering myself retired, as I left the old job last Friday. Retirement is not all it's cracked up to be. I have started having conversations with the dog, and am spending way too much money.

Too Much Caffeine on the Green Line?

At Park Street this morning, I boarded a C train and sat down as commuters continued to pile on. A man wearing a black Guiness baseball cap came charging on, clearly intent on something. He shoved his way through the crowd and bolted toward an unassuming woman making her way to the back of the car. He proceeded to SMACK her on the back and yelled something along the lines of "Thanks for pushing me! You pushed me!"

She mumbled something about someone else having pushed her; her assailant, meanwhile, had turned around to head back toward the middle of the car.

He HIT her. No one else seemed to notice. Is this normal commuting behavior now? It's now okay to hit people if you perceive that they have wronged you on the T?

He spent the rest of the ride hanging on to a ceiling rail, jittery, bobbing up and down uncontrollably. Maybe he could have used a Guiness for breakfast.

Counting Green Cars

For the second time in a week, as the Green Line train I was riding approached Arlington Street, an announcement came over the P.A.:
"Those of you in the third car, exit at the front of the car."

I ask you: how am I supposed to know if I am on the third car or not? My geospatial skills are not that refined, but it did become obvious when the train pulled into the station and I saw only the darkness of the tunnel outside the mid-car exit. It was then that I used my powers of deductive reasoning to determine that, indeed, I was on the dreaded third car.

Do people count the cars before boarding, in case of such situations? Being a Safety Girl, I understand counting the number of seat rows to determine how far you are from the exit row on an airplane, but now I'm expected to know which car I'm on when I ride the T? And how come the Green Line suddenly can't fit into the Arlington Street station? Did it gain weight?

And another thought: can't the MBTA be a little more user-focused in its communications? They always use T-centric lingo that only a seasoned MBTA employee would find meaningful.

I am reminded of the T-car doors that used to carry the message, "These doors do not recycle." That always befuddled me, as I took it as a warning not to use my brute strength to rip the door off of its hinges and tote it back home, where I could gently place it in my bright yellow recycle bin, thereby doing my part to save the planet. But they changed the signage to be a little more clear. I have to double-check this, but I believe they now say, "These doors do not re-open automatically," which is only slightly less vague. I think what they're trying to say is, "If you stick any appendage in these doors while they are closing, you will suffer death and/or dismemberment. You've been warned."

And the driver with the big-ass Green Line train that can't be accomodated by the Arlington Street platform? He should announce, "If the train stops and you see only darkness, you are still in the tunnel. Do not pry open the doors; do not get off of the train. Do not panic. These doors do not recycle. Whether you are on the first car, second car, or third car, it's no matter. Just walk to the front and exit there."

Will Commute for Blog; Will Commute to Work for Food

I never blog about work (or while at work), but it seems as though I have  been laid off. If anyone knows of an opportunity for a multi-faceted Web content, marketing, e-marketing, e-mail marketing superstar, please let me know. Otherwise, this blog could get very boring. Resumes and references are available upon request.

Note: alternatively, if anyone knows of a full-time blogging/writing opportunity for a ranting commuter with a sense of humor, do let me know. Thank you!

Medical Study Subjects Wanted

I love reading the ads for medical study subjects on the T. One that I recently spotted piqued my curiosity. It’s a Harvard Brain Study, and it begins with the question:
“Do you believe you have ESP, telepathy or a sixth sense?”

I read this question and thought, “Hmm…at times I have wondered.” And it continued:

“Do you have anxiety or discomfort in situations with unfamiliar people?”

Yes, sometimes that happens. But not too often.

“Do you have few close friends?”

I do have friends. How many close friends is too many to qualify for the study?

And then, the final question:
“Do you mistake noises for voices?”

Whoa. Hold on. You drew me in with a perfectly reasonable premise, and now this!? What do you think, I'm crazy?

It started off so innocently, with questions that many people might have answered in the affirmative, and then descended quickly into psychosis. I've decided to advertise for my own, informal study, with the following:

Do you ever feel like you have to go to the bathroom?
Have you ever cried when a loved one died?
Have you ever been the last person to see someone alive?
Have you ever killed anyone?
Is there something in your past that you did that’s so horrible that you’ve never told anyone, that you would now be willing to share with a total stranger?

Jason Needs a Helmet

There was a full-page ad on the back of this morning's Metro, touting the United Way's "Turn It Up & Get Active" campaign to fight childhood obesity.

The ad consisted of a giant photo of Jason, an active young man performing a cool skateboard move. But Jason was not wearing a helmet. I'm all for fighting childhood obesity, but when you fracture your skull and your brains are splayed out across the skateboard park, is it really going to matter how toned and healthy you are?

Miracle on the Red Line

On Wednesday, I parked at Alewife and boarded the Red Line as usual. After about ten minutes on the train, I began fumbling with my money and credit cards in my jacket pocket. I usually keep those doo-dads in my pants pockets, but I was all gussied up for a conference at the Hynes, and it so happened that the suit I was wearing had no pockets. This scintillating detail is important - trust me.

I decided that I should move my wad of cash and credit cards from my jacket to my wallet, which lives at the bottom of my backpack, and is never used. My jacket was not going to be with me at the conference, but my backpack was. So I did the transfer of the credit cards, and pulled out the money... it seemed odd to me that there was only about eight dollars; I had just gone the bank the day before and should have had a lot more. I was rooting around in my pockets looking for the cash when a woman bolted out of her seat and came over to me.

"Did you park on the fifth floor at Alewife?" she asked. I told her I had, thinking she was going to criticize my parking methods or tell me I had run over her foot. She said, "Did you lose some money?" she asked.

"Yes!" I said. "A bunch of 20s, folded up." And she pulled it out and handed it to me. She said she found it on the ground and saw me walking ahead of her, but wasn't sure I had dropped it and wasn't sure what to do. I was speechless. What are the odds that this particular woman would find my lost money, that we would end up on the same car of the train, that I would discover that the cash was missing while still on the train, and that she would realize that I was the owner?

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you so much." She said, "If I hadn't found you I was going to give it to charity." It was sixty dollars. I think I know what I'm going to do with it.

See Something? Say Something - or Else

Today, the T-bots were out in full force - armed police officers, day-glo-vest-adorned workers, and others - distributing future litter, bright orange pamphlets entitled "Trust Your Instincts and Be Prepared."

The pamphlet was all about seeing something, saying something, being vigilant, defeating the terrorists and the like. While reading the pamphlet on the T, I got to the part where it read "....You may witness something suspicious, such as:

• a passenger behaving oddly"

And started laughing out loud, as it's a rare day when I don't witness a passenger behaving oddly on the T. The woman needlessly trying to pour the remnants of a giant bag of potato chips into a snack-size ziploc bag. The snowflake-cutter. The scratch-your-ankle-til-it-bleeds guy. The pickers, the singers, the full-course meal eaters. And plus, I know they want me to say something, but I'm never clear on what I'm supposed to say, and to whom.

I quickly stopped laughing out loud when I realized that my behavior might be seen as odd and I might have to then explain myself to the watchful passengers as well as the authorities.

The next bullet item/example of suspicious behavior to watch for was:

• a group operating in an orchestrated or rehearsed manner

I pondered this, as I had just witnessed a odd assemblage of people engaging in a well-orchestrated handing out of pamphlets. It seemed rehearsed, and a bit out of place. Should I say something?
 

All-New Worst Commute Ever

Previously, I wrote about my worst commute ever, circa 1991, but now I have a new winner!

Yesterday, I boarded the Green Line at Arlington, heading for Park Street. Miraculously, the train was quite empty and I took a seat near the front of the car. Then...I smelled something. I looked down, and at my feet was a pile of newspapers, placed there to soak up the gallons of beer-scented vomit that someone had disgorged on the floor. The smell was unbearable. The fact that my shoes were in resting in vomit was intolerable. I got up and moved to the middle of the car, and stood over the stairwell.

A minute passed, while I focused on trying to learn to breathe again. I then felt an entire human body pressed up against me. Not so odd when the train is full, but this train had a lot of free space. A man squeezed past me, shoving my entire body in the process. He took the step below where I was standing and turned around to face me, a mere 7/8" from my face. I looked at him. He looked at me.

I looked around, and there was another woman holding the pole on the other side of the stairwell, but neither of us was blocking the stairs. The man muttered something like, "pushing me...motherfucker." He stared at me again. I looked away.

He then lovingly stroked the dangling hand of the man who was sitting in the first seat facing the stairwell. The hand-owner moved his hand away and Mr. Shove waved at him. I then used my powers of deductive reasoning to determine that he was mentally ill.

As the train pulled into Park Street, he addressed me directly. "Push me next time, I'll break both your legs." And then, to punctuate his statement, he concluded with a "Yeah."

As a bespectacled, graying, Jewish lesbian/stepmother living in the suburbs, I often find myself in the middle of violent altercations, but this was, indeed, the first time someone has threated to break both my legs on the T.

Also, I know that my safety is the MBTA's #1 concern, but I didn't feel very safe at that particular moment. I was definitely in the act of "seeing something" and wanted to "say something" but there were no officials nearby to whom I could say something. So I ran to the Red Line, thankful to have two working legs, so that I could quickly escape Mr. Shove and his unwarranted wrath.

Shecky on the Green Line

Yesterday, the Green Line train stopped between Boylston and Arlington. The driver made an announcement: "There's a situation on the platform at Arlington and we're not allowed to move yet. We'll keep you posted." He offered no further details, and no promises of "we'll be moving shortly."

A couple of minutes later, he gave us an update, "Once again, we're not allowed to move yet. The Boston Police and the MBTA Police are on the scene..." Again, no word of how long the delay would be, but my fellow commuters and I were patient.

And then, his final announcement: "I gave you the bad news... and now I'll give the good news," he deadpanned. "I just saved a lot on my car insurance... with Geico."

Everyone on the train was in hysterics as we pulled into the station.