Public transit story #23: You're hotter than these pretzels

Mrs. Gerbil and I took Tovah on her first overnight trip this past weekend, to visit Grandma and Grandpa Gerbil. A very fun time was had by all!



(Moo, I am sorry we didn't have time to look you up... but once you move to Phila., getting together will be even easier!)

On our way back today I had this fantastic conversation with the man selling soft pretzels, nuts, Swedish fish, etc. at the Trenton train station. He looked at least old enough to be my father, if not my grandfather; and English was decidedly not his first language.

"I help you?" he asked.

"I'd like a pretzel, please," I said.

He handed me a gigantic pretzel braid ($2.50) instead of a regular pretzel twist ($1.25) but hey, I love my Philly soft pretzels. Then he asked, "Why you so beautiful?"

I held out a $5 bill and flashed what I hoped was a "please stop being an ass and give me my change now" smile. But Mr. Smooth Soft Pretzel Man ignored the five and repeated: "why you so beautiful?"

"Genetics, I guess," I said, waving the five a little.

"You have lucky man," he said, finally taking my money and opening the register oh-so-slowly. "Give me his number. I call him." Smoooooth.

"There's no man," I said.

"Give me his number. I call him."

"I don't have a man," I repeated.

"I don't understand."

"No man," I said. "I have a woman."

"I don't understand."

"Never mind," I said. I held out my hand for my change.

He took the hint about the change, but not the one about his not being my type. He asked for my--excuse me, my nonexistent man's--phone number again, but I thanked him for the pretzel and walked away to join my wife and child.

Public transit story #22: Out of the mouths of babes

BART was full of cuteness this evening. Or perhaps I am merely noticing cuteness more often now that I am growing some cuteness in my midsection.

Well, whatever. I was sitting across the aisle from a spunky five-year-old and her mother. They were evidently returning from a rather eclectic shopping trip. The little girl's loot included a couple of lollipops and a yellow plastic recorder. The mother's loot included some perfume, a sweatshirt, and a hookah. She removed the hookah from its box to check it out.

"Oooh, mama, what's that?" asked her daughter.

"Never you mind," said mama.

"Oh, I know what that is! It's a guitar!" crowed the little girl.

At this point, mother and daughter were joined by a random new seatmate, a middle-aged man. "Look, this is my mom's new guitar!" the little girl announced. The man found this all very amusing.

The little girl conversed a little while with her new friend. Then he asked (as one is wont to do with small children) how old she was. The little girl cycled through several attempts at holding up five fingers, then asked her mother for help. Her mother held up one hand.

"I can do that!" said the little girl. And she proceeded to position her fingers in an instantly recognizable gesture that had nothing to do with her age:

METAL!

Public transit story # 21: Punky's Dilemma

The City of Berkeley has an ordinance which prohibits smoking in various public locations, including bus stops. Being the comprehensive city that Berkeley is, there is another chapter of the same ordinance detailing exactly how this information is to be posted. The penalty, supposedly, is fine and/or imprisonment.

Unfortunately, the Berkeley police have their hands full with such weightier issues as drug dealing, vandalism, the occasional assault or homicide, speeding, expired parking meters, and kids who ride their bikes on the sidewalk; and so I have yet to see a single officer of the peace confront any of the hardened criminals known as bus-stop smokers. Thus, enforcement is left to such health-conscious and/or respiratorally challenged citizens such as myself. And, except for one memorable incident, I have found bus-stop smokers to be quite willing to light up elsewhere if asked politely.

Several days ago, while waiting for the bus in downtown Berkeley, I was suddenly accosted by the smell of cigarette smoke. I turned around and realized, with horror, that I knew the offender. He had once been a client of mine--one toward whom I'd had some pretty intense, negative countertransferential feelings. He did not appear to recognize me. It had been well over a year since I'd encountered him in a clinical setting; we weren't acquainted for very long; and plus I'd since chopped off my (formerly ridiculously long) hair.

I really wanted to remind him, for the sake of my lungs and the gerb, that smoking is prohibited at the bus stop. But I did not want to risk him recognizing me--and possibly striking up a conversation with me (see countertransferential feelings above). In addition, I didn't think I'd be able to be perfectly polite in my request (again, see countertransferential feelings above), and I feared I might accidentally address him by name and find myself in awkward conversation. On the other hand, my bus was already late, and if I didn't say anything, I would continue to breathe his secondhand smoke until my bus finally showed up.

Finally, I decided just to get up and move to another bench. This was a fine solution until his bus pulled up near me, whereupon he ambled over, continued to puff away until it was his turn to board, and tossed his still-lit cigarette by the curb. He still showed no sign of having any idea who I was.

I briefly debated stomping on the discarded butt, but then my bus arrived.

Was avoiding interaction altogether the right thing to do? I don't know. My rule of thumb on greeting present or former clients in public is to let them greet me first. On rare occasions will I be the first to say hi; but I only do this when I'm out alone. But this situation was not about saying hi--and therein lies the rub.

Public transit story #20: In vino veritas

Yesterday was San Francisco's annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of all that is leather, fetish, or otherwise kinky. (NB: the aforementioned link is probably not suitable for work.)

I have never been to the Folsom Street Fair. It's really not my scene. However, there were some really hot fairgoers on the BART with me in the late afternoon, which I found pretty interesting.

Many of these fairgoers were also inebriated. One guy took the opportunity to squat down (presumably out of range of the security cameras), remove a bottle of wine from his backpack, wave it around victoriously, and take a long swig. Thus emboldened, he stood up and reached for the overhead handrail.

(For some reason, guys like to show off by doing pull-ups, flips, and other vaguely gymnastic feats from these handrails--especially when the train is zooming through the Transbay Tunnel at speeds upwards of 70 mph, and even more especially when they are under the influence of at least one substance.)

Alas for this sloshed fairgoer, he miscalculated his upward trajectory. Instead of executing a flawless pull-up, he whomped his head on the handrail and set his equally inebriated friends to laughing.

Public transit story #19: Chivalry is not dead

On Saturday morning BART was full of people going to the Giants-Phillies game. Lacking a place to sit, I found myself a place to stand.

"Excuse me, miss, would you like to sit down?" asked a boy of no more than 11 years of age. He rose halfway out of his seat before I could answer.

I was very touched. I thanked him for the offer but insisted that he keep his seat. He seemed a little disappointed at first, but then he beamed shyly when his dad (and various other passengers) complimented him on his gentlemanliness.

It's thing like this which maintain my faith in humanity.

Public transit story #18: Saving it for later

I admit: I have a very poor sense of smell.

For most of my life my nasal passages were completely clogged by allergies. It's only been in the past few years that I've been able to breathe through my nose. Say what you will about mouth-breathers--I've heard it all before.

Now there is a whole olfactory world out there with which I must become acquainted. I can smell lots of things now, but I have no idea what they are. I'm really good at identifying things like natural gas, peanut butter, baked goods, vanilla, popcorn and sulfur. But I tend to label vaguely unpleasant odors as one of the following:

1) tuna fish;
2) toast;
3) burning motor oil; or
4) pee.

You'd be surprised at how often I think Berkeley smells like tuna fish or toast. But then there was one morning when our entire neighborhood smelled to me like nasty stir-fry. The culprit turned out to be the garbage truck, which is powered by vegetable oil. Kitchen waste + hot vegetable oil = nasty stir-fry, indeed.

Mrs. Gerbil has the sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying task of helping me identify odors. Sometimes I need assistance telling burning motor oil from hot engine; but most of the time it's pot versus skunk. I know skunk very well, as I grew up in skunk country and have experienced live skunk under the house, dead skunk under the house, and of course dead skunk in the middle of the road. During my senior year of high school, a skunk crawled under the house, died, and perfumed all of my clothes. I was definitely not the most popular kid in school the next day. But I digress.

Pot versus skunk is tough. Mrs. Gerbil admits that pot smells like skunk, but her rule of thumb is that skunk travels, whereas pot does not. Sometimes, while we're driving on the highway, I'll yell "SKUNK!" and Mrs. Gerbil will say, "No, honey, that's pot." Which begs the question: why does the highway smell like pot, or rather, who's driving while stoned?

BART trains often smell like pot/skunk. (I'd rather people take transit while stoned than drive while stoned, but then I'd really prefer they sit in another car.) I'm reasonably certain that no one gets on BART after being sprayed by a skunk, and also reasonably certain that a whole lot of people in the Bay Area get stoned with great frequency. Most of the time it's teenagers who fragrance BART, but occasionally there's a middle-aged ex-hippie providing the aromatherapy.

On Tuesday an elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman sat down in front of me, and at that moment my world began to smell like a head shop. A lot of teenagers had boarded at the same time, so I gave in to stereotyping and figured one of them was high.

Then I saw the last little bit of a joint tucked behind this man's rather sizable ear.

I was proud of myself for correctly identifying pot, but I was even more impressed by this guy's storage facilities.

Public transit story #17: Private lives

Mrs. Gerbil and I took the bus into town over the weekend, in order to accomplish various and sundry activities such as paying the rent. We were among only a handful of people headed into town on that particular line at that particular time, which should have meant a nice, quiet 5-minute ride.

But no.

Also on the bus was a girl about our age who was engaged in an extremely loud pre-break-up conversation. The presumably-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend was not on the bus, however, but on the other end of her cell phone connection. Mrs. Gerbil and I heard far more than we wanted to about this girl's life, her burgeoning self-confidence, and his infidelities. And about how "the punk-rock world is very small."

The awful thing was that there was really no way not to overhear. Mrs. Gerbil and I tried in vain to hold our own conversation at normal volume, but this girl was just so incredibly loud (possibly because of the volume at which the small punk-rock world plays its music) that we kept getting derailed. We tried really hard not to laugh, but that didn't work so well either.

She was still having words with her soon-to-be-ex as she got off the bus. I turned to Mrs. Gerbil and said, "There are some phone conversations that you just shouldn't have on the bus." Mrs. Gerbil agreed.

I mean, the punk-rock world is awfully small. There might only be two degrees of separation between you and the bus driver.

Public Transit Story #16: So what?

Oh boy! A public transit story and a customer service story all in one handy package!

I called to register a complaint today. Usually I do this online, but even though I always check the little box to request an email reply, I've never received so much as a "Thank you for submitting a comment." So I called, thinking it would be less complicated and more conducive to immediate gratification. Of course, I was wrong.

Me: I'd like to register a complaint about a driver.
Representative: Okay, what happened?
Me: This has happened before with the same driver and I've complained before. The driver arrives several minutes late, leaves the bus running and the door open, and goes to buy a snack. Then I have to run for a connection that should have several minutes of overlap.
Representative: But you said the bus is already late.
Me: Yes. I'm not calling because the bus is late. I'm calling because the driver leaves the bus running while buying a snack--when the bus is full of passengers!
Representative: [silence]
Me: The driver leaves a running bus for two or three minutes, while it's full of passengers.
Representative: So it's an unauthorized stop, then.
Me: It's my actual bus stop. We all get on the bus and then the driver gets off. I'm concerned because someone could just drive the bus off.
Representative: Oh. That is a problem, isn't it.

I've been sick for the past few days, but as Mrs. Gerbil says, it's a sure sign that I'm better when I start rectifying things again.

Public Transit Story #15: Bad hair day

Okay, I know it's impolite to stare. I try not to stare, even when I'm people-watching. However, it's really hard to watch people subtly, especially when your job involves watching a whole group of people for 50 minutes at a stretch, so that you can write up little notes later about how they "presented." Whenever I'm in a large group of people--outside work, mind you--I find myself observing like crazy. As with the Therapist Clock, I just can't shut my Observing Self off.

But this is a public transit story.

Yesterday I observed an older gentleman on the bus. He had the longest nose hairs I've ever seen. They were yellowish-white and extended at least half an inch beyond his nostrils. As if this weren't odd enough, he spent much of the bus ride twirling his nose hairs.

It was really, really hard for me not to stare. And I don't think I would have had such difficulty if had he not been playing with them.

Public transit story #14: Parallel postulate

Last Wednesday, the first of the month, our rent was due. We pay rent directly into our landlords' bank account, as we use the same bank and it's a lot easier than mailing a check several days in advance. This month it was my turn to go stand in line at the bank. Whoopie.

So I boarded the #88 and figured I would have about three minutes' cushion for my transfer to the #51. Oh, how wrong I was; but if I'd been correct, you wouldn't be reading this, now, would you?

There was this very confused woman on the bus who had evidently been trying to figure out her stop for most of the ride. She kept insisting that she needed to get off at Acton Street (or, as she spelled it, "A-C-T-I-O-N Street"). The driver and the rest of the passengers kept telling her, "This bus runs along Sacramento Street. Acton's the next street over. They don't intersect."

"But I have to get off at Acton!" she repeated.

"No, you have to get off at a cross-street. You're going to Acton and what?" we all asked.

"A-C-T-I-O-N! I can see the #88 from there and so I know this bus stops there!"

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally I said, "Maybe you want to get off at Addison?"

"Or Allston?" suggested another passenger.

"Addison? Yes, that's it. No! I want Acton. Maybe this is my stop coming up." The bus driver pulled over to the stop, which was Channing. "No," said the woman, "I think it's the next one."

So we stopped at Bancroft. We stayed there a while, so that she could debate with herself whether this was her stop. Finally: "No, this isn't it. It's the next one."

The next one was Addison. As the driver was pulling over, the woman said, "Oh, no, it was the last one! Now I have to walk all the way back there?"

"I can't turn this bus around for you," said the driver. "You either get off here or you get off somewhere else down the line."

"Where's Acton then?" she demanded. We all pointed to the left. She grumbled off the bus.

"I don't know what her deal was," said the driver as she pulled away from the stop. "Doesn't she understand you can't get off at Acton and Sacramento when they don't intersect?"

With all that delay, I missed my connection. The #51 pulled up just before we did, and even though the driver tapped several times on her horn (secret code for "hey! transferring passengers!") and I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me toward the bus, the #51 (which had neither discharged nor picked up anyone else) closed its doors while I was still a few feet away. Yes, I knew another would come in 7 minutes, but it was the principle of the thing:

AC Transit might break some rules now and then, but one thing it can't violate is Euclidean geometry.

(And speaking of lines, the one at the bank did indeed suck.)

Public transit story #13: Of age

While waiting for the #40L yesterday, I noticed a small boy watching me with intense interest. This little fellow could not have been more than 9 years old. He was there with his older brother, who looked about 13 or 14, and a woman who was probably their mother but may have been grandma instead. You can never tell.

After a long period of observation, the boy came up to me and said, "How old are you?" (Brazen little dude!)

"How old do you think I am?" I said. I would never reply this way to an adult, but the answers I get from kids are hysterical.

"Thirteen," said the kid.

"Multiply that by two," I said.

"Huh?" the kid replied.

"Times two?" I tried. The kid looked at me blankly. "Thirteen times two?" I said. Another blank look. "Do you know your times tables?" I asked.

"Nooooooo," said the kid, with a big silly grin.

"Well," I said, "thirteen times two is twenty-six. I am 26 years old, but I'll be 27 in two months. How old are you?"

"I'm thirteen!" he crowed.

This was obviously not true, but I thought I'd play along. "Then I'm twice as old as you are."

"Naw, I'm not thirteen," he said, "Actually I'm twelve."

Also a lie, but this was all very cute. "When will you be thirteen?"

"April."

"Oh, you're halfway there then!"

"Yeah, my birthday is next week and I'm gonna go out to dinner and have a big ol' party all over town!"

Then his (grand?)mother chimed in: "You're not thirteen, you're eight! Stop being stupid."

"No, I'm thirteen!"

"You'll be thirteen in five years," she said.

"No, I'll be sixteen in five years!" he replied. Then, to me: "You go to school still, or do you work?"

"I'm all done with school. I work."

"You work in West Oakland?"

"I work right around the corner from here."

"You work at the doctor's office?"

The outpatient medical offices for Children's Hospital of Oakland are indeed right around the corner from the bus stop--and directly across the street from the day hospital where I work. Figuring it would be a losing battle to try to explain partial hospitalization to an eight-year-old, I said, "Yeah, I do work at a doctor's office."

"WOW," he said, his eyes wide with admiration. Then he announced that he was going to go slip and fall on his butt in a puddle of rainwater.

Public transit story #12: Differently abled

Last week I rode the bus next to a gentleman of indeterminate age. His face suggested he was about 35; his hair suggested he was about 50. He had with him a garden-variety cane, the hollow metal kind with the grey rubber handle. We were sitting in one of the supposedly accessible seats at the front of the bus. A lot of people (particularly readers of the Berkeley Daily Planet) are quite pissed about these seats, which are more than a foot off the floor of the bus. Those who are at least 5'7 can slide on and off these seats with little trouble. We shorter folk don't fare so well--even yours truly, who though still young and limber has actually fallen off the seat. Not cool.

But enough of that rant.

This gentleman of indeterminate age spent most of the trip fiddling with his cane, pressing it up against his chin and such. He peered about the bus in a peculiar way. Then, as we neared the Berkeley Bowl (which would be the coolest grocery store ever if it weren't always packed with crazy people who push their carts north while looking south), said gentleman of indeterminate age extended the handle of his cane toward the call button. He pushed at the button with the handle of his cane several times in a most uncoordinated fashion, but the "stop requested" sign did not light up.

As befits one who works with adults with severe mental illness, these days I pretty much automatically observe and mentally catalogue behaviors, especially non-normative ones. I'd watched this guy fidget, look around his environment weirdly, and demonstrate poor hand-eye coordination. He was in a seat reserved for people with disabilities. He had a standard-issue cane. I guessed he had some kind of mobility impairment plus a neurological something-or-other.

"Is your stop next?" I asked. He grunted. That seemed to be a "yes," so I pushed the call button for him and moved out of his way (narrowly missing falling off the accessible seat). Again, he grunted.

And then this gentleman of indeterminate age walked off the bus with perfect grace and danced down the block, twirling and tossing his generic cane as though it were a wooden rifle and he a member of a high-school color guard.

Public transit story #11: The answer is in the question

Okay, first off: I feel slightly disingenuous about calling this a Public Transit Story, as it took place on Amtrak, which is not exactly public transit. But now that I've made this disclaimer, I feel a whole lot better.

So, without further ado, I present the following tale:

We went up to Sacramento this weekend for our anniversary. Neither of us had ever stayed in a place that cost $300 per night--at least not on our own dime (or 3000 dimes, as the case may be)--and so our one night in this gorgeous B&B was a little overwhelming. In a nice way, of course, but still.

An important aspect of this trip was taking the train from Berkeley to Sacramento. I love Amtrak. It might be slow and occasionally expensive, but often the tracks run through some really neat areas. I am fascinated by the sorts of things that are built right along railroad tracks--and sometimes I'm more fascinated by the things that are falling apart than the things that are well maintained.

Of course, Amtrak also provides ample opportunity for people-watching.

On our return trip, we were across the aisle from a pair of students. These girls were fairly loud (or was it merely that the rest of the train was fairly quiet?), and their conversation topics included boys, girls, parties, hard classes, easier classes, wanting to go to the gym more, and wanting to eat less junk food. Pretty standard for college students, really. After a lot of loud conversation, they finally agreed to do some homework.

The glorious silence was burst, much too soon, by "Hey, do you know what 'esoteric' means?"

Her friend didn't know.

I bit my lip. It was all I could do to keep from (1) blurting the definition across the aisle or (2) peeing myself with appreciation of sweet, sweet irony.

Public transit story #10: I like the way you move

Yesterday we went to Emeryville, home of the big-box retailers. Emeryville boasts (among others) Ikea, Borders, Home Depot, Old Navy, Gap, Office Max, Babies 'R' Us, and Michaels. Emeryville has movie theaters, a California Pizza Kitchen, a P.F. Chang's (don't get me started on how I got food poisoning from my first and only P.F. Chang's meal), a multi-ethnic food court, a Denny's, and of course the Swedish meatball cafeteria at Ikea. Emeryville also has an Amtrak station, some scientific industry, a cafe co-owned by the bass player of Green Day, and a whole lot of condos.

On the way to Emeryville, home of all that is commercial and shiny, we happened upon a lovely gentleman. Although perhaps I should say that as we were standing around at the bus stop, (im)patiently waiting for the #57, this dude blurted, "Hey, are those Doc Martens?"

"Yeah," I said, "the only pair I've ever owned." This is true. I have never been able to afford Docs, and then I saw a pair at Shoe Pavilion for $40 and I just had to have them.

He smiled.

A few minutes later, the guy piped up again: "They're nice."

"Thanks," I said.

The bus came. My wife and I headed to the back of the bus and took two inward-facing seats.

This fellow passed up a few other empty seats in order to sit right across from us. He stared at my shoes. "Those are nice," he said again.

I smiled and looked away.

Then: "I like them, how they move. With the toe part."

I had no idea what he was talking about. My Docs are Mary Janes. The tips move when I move my toes. They're not, like, motorized or anything. Or independently ambulatory. This was all starting to creep me out, so I pretended I couldn't hear him over the noise of the bus.

Then the dude got this big grin on his face and said, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! MM-HM!" I looked down and saw that I had been wiggling my toes out of sheer nervousness.

The next stop, thankfully, was ours.

I suppose it could have been worse. Had he also been a frotteur, I would have had to fend off ambush footsies.

Public transit story #9: Ditmus

Yesterday my wife and I helped my best friend move from three miles away from us to almost forty miles away from us. I'm quite sad that she moved, but at least her commute will be a whole lot less hellish.

There's really no good way to get theah from heah except by car, but of course I had injured myself rather stupidly at a Habitat for Humanity project the day before and wasn't entirely capable of operating the stickshift; and my wife was at work that morning, which meant she was halfway there already. Thus, she was not about to come home, get me and the car, and turn around and drive back. So we bumbled our way through friends' cars and transit, and it was all well and good in the end.

Except that just before the end, we encountered this guy on the BART.

This guy settled himself noisily in the seat behind us and placed his elbow perilously close to our heads.

Here's the thing about BART culture--it's totally cool to sit down next to someone you don't know, but it's totally uncool to invade a stranger's personal space, even if it's just the strap of your briefcase against his or her leg. This guy's elbow was not yet touching us, so he was not in violation of noli me tangere, but personal safety trumps BART culture anyway, and everyone knows it.

So my wife turned around and said, "Excuse me, sir, but would you mind moving your elbow? We don't want to get hit in the head."

The guy (who, by the way, was an older white dude with a smattering of tattoos on his wrinkly arms) said, "Well, how about I put it here then?" and moved his elbow back a fraction of an inch.

We looked at him pointedly.

"Our heads are right here," I said, "so would you please move your elbow?"

He moved his elbow away, but he put his head in its place and started muttering things like "you don't like my elbow here? Well, I don't like your asses in that seat! Move your asses! I don't like them there! They're in my way!"

We ignored him.

Unsatisfied with our complete lack of response, he got up and moved to the seat facing us. All the while he muttered away--sometimes saying vaguely menacing things about our apparently inconvenient asses, other times saying largely incoherent things about girls reading books.

We continued to ignore him, but every so often we looked at him out of the corners of our eyes. Just in case.

He started rummaging around in his bookbag. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper after a while, then a pen, and scribbled something on the paper. He offered it to my wife. She ignored him. "Read this!" he said. "Look!" and he tossed the paper onto her book. She read it.

"Is this your name?" she said. No response. "This is yours," she said, with more sweetness than I could have mustered, and handed it back.

This apparently was not the response he was expecting. He grew visibly pissed, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it onto the seat next to him. More muttering.

When he got off the train several minutes later, he said to us, "I'm sorry I was rude to you girls."

"That's okay," said my wife, ever the minister. "Have a nice evening."

Later, while we were waiting for the bus, she said, "Honey, do you know what 'ditmus' means?"

"Huh?"

"'Ditmus'? D-I-T-M-U-S?"

"What's 'ditmus'?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm asking you. It's what the guy wrote on that piece of paper."

"I have no idea. But there was something not cognitively right about that man, and I was in this dilemma about whether ignoring him would extinguish his behavior or escalate it."

"Eh, I don't think he was dangerous. But I kept an eye on him just the same."

"High, psychotic, or both--that's for sure. Hey! The bus is here!"

I had some down time at work today, so I decided to Google-define "ditmus." Want a laugh? Follow the link for the suggested spelling.

Merry Ditmus, everyone!

Public transit story #8: No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue.

On Wednesday I pulled an 11-hour day at work.

Well, to be precise, I pulled a 12-hour day at work, but I took an hour and a half for dinner between my actual work day (which ended at 5:00) and my stupid late meeting at another agency (which started at 6:30). Since I didn't take a lunch break, I decided that half an hour of my dinner break ought to be on the clock.

Most of us at the late meeting had to be back at the same location twelve hours later for another meeting. That totally sucked, and not just because the late meeting was two and a half hours long and the morning meeting was three hours long and none of us was very happy about any of these arrangements. We should've had a slumber party. Giggling into the night might just have made us slightly more productive the next day.

But alas, no slumber party for us.

Thankfully, these monthly three-hour meetings come with starch, fruit, and caffeine. I was able to get up a little later than usual, roll into some clothes, roll out the door, and roll onto the train without having to make coffee or breakfast, and still have both coffee and food before having to say vaguely intelligible things.

So there I was, having rolled onto the train that was rolling toward the Caldecott Tunnel, when I heard the conductor come on the PA system.

"Um, folks, we're having some problems with the PA system in the first car. Those passengers in the first car might want to move into another car in order to hear the PA system."

Huh? Did he just say what I thought he said, or was I asleep and/or hearing things?

Said the conductor, "Again, those passengers in the first car might want to move to another car in order to--"

SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

We had just entered the Caldecott Tunnel. The noise level in BART's tunnels is such that people who turn up their iPods to drown out the sounds of their commutes are at risk for hearing loss. And yet the conductor yammered all the way through the tunnel and then some about how people in the first car might have trouble hearing the malfunctioning PA system.

Suddenly I felt a lot better about showing up at my meeting sticky-eyed and stupid.

Public transit story #7: Too sexy

I left work fairly early today, on account of a mid-afternoon dentist appointment. I'm not too fond of dental appointments--why has everything that's gone awry in my mouth been the direct result of previous work?--but at least the dentist is conveniently right by the train station on this end.

On the train was this young guy, probably in his early 20s or so. He was leaning up against the wall of the car, and he seemed to think he was having a conversation with some people across the aisle. The people across the aisle were not of the same opinion, for they were talking amongst themselves and not even looking at this guy.

"Don't you think I'm the sexiest man around?" he kept saying. "I am the sexiest man on the train. Don't you think I'm the sexiest man ever?"

The people across the aisle were not impressed.

After a few minutes he seemed to get frustrated by the lack of attention coming his way.

"I AM LEGENDARY!" he proclaimed. "I am so legendary! I am the sexiest man ever! I am legendary-sexy, sexy-legendary, the sexiest legendary man alive!"

I'm glad I was only on the train with this dude for one stop. This was all pretty funny at first, but those four minutes between stops were not so sexy.

But legendary? Absolutely.

Public transit story #6: Mystery shoppers

What with skyrocketing gas prices, I decided this evening to suck it up and buy a monthly bus pass in addition to my high-value train ticket. I was hesitant to do this because monthly bus passes cost $70, and I rarely drive anyway because people in these parts are such idiots behind the wheel. Plus, I walk to and from the train station on this end.

Well, most of the time I walk to and from the station on this end. Sometimes I have my wife come pick me up in the evening because my job (and all of its walking) make me just so damn tired that another mile and a half might possibly kill me. But then that means the car gets turned on, goes three miles in stop light city, and gets turned off again. Which uses up prodigious quantities of precious, precious gasoline.

Thus, I finally sucked it up and bought me a bus pass tonight.

After my gloriously ecologically-minded purchase, I got on my gloriously non-ecologically-minded bus. Some of the buses have hydrogen fuel cells these days, but not the ones on the line I use most often. The 9 is seriously AC Transit's neglected child. Tonight's bus not only was carpeted with sunflower husks (unheard of on other lines!), but some of the seats in the back were mysteriously wet.

Two of the dry seats in the back were occupied by a pair of young men, at most 19 years old but in all likelihood no more than 17. These two fellows were decked out in gangsta regalia, pants 'round their ankles and bling 'round their necks. Once I took my own dry seat, one of them asked me where the bus turned.

"It turns down Haste," I said, "and then it goes on MLK for a block before turning again on Dwight."

"Where Haste?" the boy said. (In case anyone was wondering, the verb "to be" is still a full member of the English language.)

"It's in about a block and a half," I replied.

"Okay," the boy replied. "You know that fabric store," he continued, naming a fancy local fabric store.

"Yeah," I said.

"Where's it at?"

I told him.

"Where do we get off for it?"

"Right after the bus turns on Haste," I said.

"Is it for?"

"What?"

"Is it for?"

"Is it four o'clock? No, it's not." In fact, it was nearly seven.

"Noooo, is it for?"

His friend could hardly contain himself.

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're asking."

"Is... it... FOR. Like, how far we have to walk?"

"Oh, is it far? No, you just get off at the corner and walk a block and a half that way," I replied, pointing.

"You smoke weed?" asked the boy.

"No," I said.

"You never smoked weed?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Okay," he said.

The bus turned on Haste and the two boys got off. Despite my excellent directions (and pointing), they paced around bewilderedly until long afted the bus had passed.

"Those are two of the most unlikely fabric store customers I've ever seen," I said to the middle-aged guy next to me. He giggled.

So I ask you: Were they going to score some weed in front of the fabric store? Did they want to compensate me for my generous help? Did they want to score some weed from me? Did I look high?

Did they want me to come to their hotboxed quilting bee?

In any case, thus far it's $70 well spent.

Public transit story #5: Career aspirations

On my way home from work on Monday evening, the train was surprisingly empty. Usually it's at least moderately full until I make my transfer, at which point I often have to push my way onto a fairly packed car. I rarely get a seat on that line, but it's okay, as I either get off four minutes or nine minutes later, and although I'm not the picture of physical grace, I haven't fallen into anyone's lap yet.

As the train approached my transfer point, I happened to catch a conversation of some high school girls. I really couldn't avoid catching it, though, because they were awfully loud and the rest of the train was awfully quiet.

One of the girls was going on about how her mother wants her to go to this one college, "which is a good school, and it's in our neighborhood, but it's an all-girls' school."

Her friends offered their sympathies. They encouraged her to talk to her mom and maybe get her to change her mind.

Then she said, apropos of nothing in particular, "I saw Memoirs of a Geisha this weekend. That was a good movie. I totally want to be a geisha."

Silence.

"Um," said one of her friends, "aren't geishas, like, sluts?"

"Well, yeah," said the girl, "but they're, you know, the nice kind of sluts. A geisha is like... like... a high-class ho." She proceeded to go on about the honor of losing one's virginity to specific kinds of customers.

A dear friend of mine has just been accepted to a graduate program at this particular institute of higher learning. She's really into Japanese culture (and wasn't so sure about the accuracy of Memoirs of a Geisha, either the book or the movie). Perhaps she will stumble upon a secret geisha training program, and this teenager will miss out for having obtained her mother's blessing to attend another school, where the boys are but the northern California geisha interns aren't.

Public transit story #4: The magic seat

When my wife and I were in tenth grade, we had this chemistry teacher who was, um, a bit odd. I had him first period; my wife had him second period. He liked to play with the bunsen burners. His favorite one was right next to my seat. One day he wanted to show us how different chemicals made different colored flames. So he lit some newspaper on fire. Next to my head. Little bits of burning newspaper flew about the room. I wrote him a note that said I did not appreciate him burning things next to my head and would he please allow me to go to the other side of the room when he wanted to light something on fire. He agreed, but he mocked me severely every time.

This man told racist jokes, made sexist remarks, and was generally an ass for 50 minutes at a stretch. He was also the coach of the girls' tennis team. The girls' tennis team was very good. His chemistry lessons--not so much.

He taught us about electron valences using what he called the Bus Seat Rule. The Bus Seat Rule goes like this: When most people get on a bus alone, they head for a pair of empty seats. Most people will not sit next to someone they don't know unless there is no remaining pair of empty seats. In that case, they will stay as far away from their seatmates as possible. And when an empty pair opens up, most people will abandon their seatmates to go sit alone. He demonstrated this by telling my lab partner to get out of her seat. She did. He sat down next to me and began invading my personal space. I scooted my chair away.

This, he said, is what electrons do.

Either I was an easy target, or he just didn't like me.

Today I was riding the bus. I got on at the beginning of the line. Here is an approximate diagram of the bus at the start of its journey:



Note how many empty seats there are. Note also that I was not sitting in a seat that must be yielded to seniors or people with disabilities. I make a point not to sit in those seats unless all the rest are occupied. I'd sooner sit next to a person I don't know than sit in one of those seats. I don't like people with mobility issues having to wait for me to vacate the seats reserved for them.

When the bus made its first stop, about eight people got on. The first of these was an old woman with a paper grocery bag. I was peacefully reading my book (Donald Barthelme's Forty Stories, a favorite of mine from, well, tenth grade) and all of a sudden I hear "MOVE IT! MOVE! EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" from this old woman with her paper grocery bag.

I wasn't going to argue with this woman about how I was there first. Nor about how federal law says nothing about who gets dibs on this seat. Nor about how this particular seat actually had less legroom than most of the other forward-facing seats. Nor about how the rows across from and behind the seat were both open. Nor about how the bus was practically empty. I'd already had a traumatic enough day. If this seat was really that important to her, then by G-d, she should have it.

I moved across the aisle. She maneuvered herself into the seat, put her grocery bag on her lap, and sat there scowling at least until I got off the bus.

She would've made one hell of an electron.