lunch in the heat

Today for lunch some of my work staff and myself went over to a neighboring building's cafeteria as they have good chicken wings on Friday. Lately the heat has been horrible, it's another day of 100 degree heat on the concrete. At that temperature the smell of concrete stained by homeless guy's urine rises directly to the nose.

The biggest A-hole on the train..

When I take the train into work in the mornings there is a lot of time for reflection, particullarly if it is one of those mornings when I am sitting outside of the group of my friends; my friends normally congregating at one end of one of the cars. Sometimes I just like to sit, wake up, and think.

Commuter train cars are all basically constructed the same way, with an entrance at either end to go into the next car, plus an exit on each end (door) to get off depending if the platform is going to be on right hand side or the left hand side. They call the area where the cars are hooked together the "vestibule". It's the small area that allows eggress from either side and the opening to go to the next cars "vestibule". This entire area has a door that remains closed into the main passenger cabin. The conductors continually warn people "Don't stand in the vestibule until the train has come to a complete stop!"

As the train comes into Union Station DC in the morning it gradually slows down and everybody that is on the train is going to have to disembark. It's the last stop and everyone gets off to scurry on to their work destination for the day. Over the years I find the etiquette interesting as the train pulls into the station. People will get up from the middles of the cars and file up to the front, effectively forming a line to the door so that they can get off before their trainmates. But when the train comes to a stop and it is now "obvious" that everyone is leaving, people are 'fake' polite and let the people in the seats filter out if they are ahead of you  in the line. This is interesting psychology. If the people aren't paying attention it's ok to cut ahead and get to the front. But as soon as everyone has to get off and is paying attention, 'fake' politeness rules. ;-)

For awhile I thought that the biggest a-hole on the train was the person that got up and walked to the door first, commanding attention that he (or she) was going to be the first one to get off the train. After a number of years I've decided that this isn't true. The biggest a-hole on the train is the person that waits for the first person to make his or her way to the door and then quickly gets up behind them so that they can be second. They now have someone in front of them so it "looks" fine that they got up behind them. Agreed, the first person is self-important and wants to get off first, but at least that person is honest about it. I stand by my decision, it's the second person to get in line that is the biggest a-hole on the train. ;-)

"Good Morning!"

This morning I needed to ride on the Penn line so that I could leave work early for an afternoon appointment. A problem with riding on the Camden trains is that once the morning rush hour is over the tracks are used to haul frieght and the first commuter train out in the afternoon is after 4 pm. I said "good morning" to the conductor when he came around looking for tickets and he just looked at me, looked at my ticket and walked on.

I'm amazed at the rudeness of the Penn line conductors. I was coming back on a Penn train about a year ago when the conductor got to a young man that wasn't very experienced with the train and didn't have a ticket but wanted to buy one. The problem was that he didn't have cash and wanted to buy the ticket with a credit card. The conductor that day is a surly older gentleman with (what I think) is a German-sounding accent. The conductor gave the young guy a chastizing that they only take cash and told him he had to get off at the next stop, find a cash machine, and wait for the next train. As the conductor walked away he said loudly so that all could hear "That's the problem with this country! Nobody carries around any money!". I understand you need to do your job, but berating the customers in front of everyone is over the line. That's why I try to keep my mouth shut while on the Penn line.. you never know what kind of mood your conductor will be in that day!

clotheslined!

For today I thought I would share an incident that happened a few weeks ago in June on the Penn line train. MARC has three different train lines that come into DC called the Penn line, the Camden line, and the Brunswick line, named because of where they originate on their way into DC. I normally take the Camden line or the Penn line. On the date this happened I wasn't on the Penn train but a friend of mine was and here is her quote from Facebook: "While boarding the train I just literally witnessed a woman 'clothesline' and take down another female passenger while yelling "I won't let you cut in front of me". Seriously?".

I find this funny and disturbing at the same time. Further (Facebook) posts showed that Amtrak police was waiting at DC and there was some discussions and a possible arrest made. The Camden line train has a lot of people riding, but no where near the amount of people that ride the Penn line. When I board the Penn line train I stand back and let all the "pushy" people get on first and wait until the end to board. It's usually the best thing to do.

Train "etiquette" is very odd in Maryland and I'll discuss some of that in future posts. For now I'll just explain how train boarding works. Normally people know approximately where the train is going to stop and position themselves into "groups" accordingly. So scattered down the platform you will see groups of 20-40 people trying to guess where the train will stop. Normally I like to stand away from these groups a little bit and second guess them. If I luck out I get on the train first, but normally I end up waiting till the end to board. No big deal. At the station where I get on there is still plenty of seating.

Ring Tone

So this morning coming in to work on the MARC train it is a peacefull and quiet ride most of the way in. In the final few minutes as we are pulling into the station a guy's cell phone goes off with a ringtone in this woman's voice "You can't hide from me, I own your ass!  You can't hide from me, I own your ass!". I can only assume it must have been his wife calling.