Back
in my public transportation days, I would take an express bus from a
parking lot close to my house to a Metro stop, where I'd take a train
into the city. The express bus was usually a 15-minute journey, which
was a good thing, since many mornings people were packed into them
like sardines and most mornings I was late to the bus stop which made
me one of the sardines who had to stand for the entire ride. The
other good thing about the bus was that it was authorized to take the
express lanes on the highway, so we rarely dealt with traffic or
backups.
What
would happen was the bus would get close to the little railroad
crossing arm that separated the regular lanes from the express lanes
and a sensor on the bus would alert the little arm that the bus was
coming and then the arm would raise up and the bus would never have
to slow down. I never second-guessed this technology. You can clearly
see where this is going.
So
one morning I'm standing in a packed bus, looking out the front
window as best I can so I don't get motion sick and barf all over
someone in a suit and an important-looking government badge, when I
see that we're hurtling at top speed toward the little railroad
crossing arm and the little railroad crossing arm is NOT GOING UP.
And yet we're still moving! And the railroad arm is still down! Still
down! STILL DOWN and the bus driver is clearly trusting that it is
going to go up in time and then all of a sudden he realizes it isn't
and he slams on the brakes and we go from 55 miles an hour to an
ABSOLUTE STANDSTILL and no one but me seems to be aware this could
even possibly happen because they've all got their noses buried in
the Washington Post business section and so everyone standing in the
aisle falls into a jumbled heap on the bus floor and briefcases are
thumping into people's heads and elbows are jamming into people's
ribs and FEET ARE STOMPING ON PEOPLE'S BACKS and the most awkward
part is that after everyone stands back up, no one says anything. No
one laughs, or cracks a joke, or swears at the bus driver for putting
our lives in danger; even the bus driver HIMSELF doesn't say
anything. No, we just stand there, silently, like the icy, soulless
Washingtonians we are, and when I get to work everyone in the break
room wants to know why I have footprints on my back. Oh, because I
fell down in the bus and someone stepped on my back but I don't know
who it was because no one helped me up and no one apologized either.
No one apologized! AFTER STEPPING ON MY BACK.
Another
time it was snowing when I got on in the morning and so it wasn't
long before traffic was completely deadlocked, because this is
Washington, DC, and even though every other winter we get a decent
snowstorm, no one seems to remember anything about driving in it
except that maybe they should PANIC and so I stood on that packed bus
for MORE THAN AN HOUR, in the same spot, while we went nowhere. And
ok, so don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who expects men
to give up their seats for a lady anymore (a pregnant woman or an
elderly woman, however, YES PLEASE) but how about just giving other
people (women AND men) a chance to sit down for a moment or two since
you know they've been standing for a very long time? And I know,
standing isn't usually that big of a deal (it's called working
retail) but this was standing in a crowded area, where the most
movement I could get was shuffling my feet a little; it's not like I
could move around or stretch or UNLOCK MY KNEES. But everyone who was
sitting kept their noses buried in their newspapers and books because
it was the best way to pretend that others weren't suffering around
them. So I stood there, getting angrier and angrier because DUDE, my
LEGS HURT and I'm going to PASS OUT from the fatigue of being wedged
between all these people and also the steamy steamy HEAT with the
winter coat and the mittens and the hat and the wool scarf and then
WHAT DO YOU KNOW: the man next to me says, “Would you like to sit
down?” And I smiled at him and said, “Oh, no, I'm fine. Thank
you, though.” And then I had no one to be angry at but myself,
because suddenly it was my own damn fault if my back gave out. Lesson: I ANNOY EVEN MYSELF.
Then
one afternoon I left the office a couple of minutes late, so I was
booking it to catch the train when I tripped in front of six lanes of
traffic and fell on a grate. A GRATE. Which would have been bad
enough, what with the six lanes of traffic and all and the fact that
I haven't tripped and fallen down at full speed since JUNIOR HIGH,
but what made it infinitely worse was that this particular grate
wasn't flat, it had raised notches on it, like this. My casual Friday
jeans were torn open at the knees and the skin was hanging off the
heels of my hands and I was bleeding and did I mention that skin was
HANGING OFF MY HANDS? My knee wounds weren't too obvious, because my
jeans were soaking up the blood (yum!) but I was about to get on a
crowded train during Friday afternoon rush hour, which meant I was
most likely not going to be able to get a seat. The alternative was
going to have to be to hold onto the poles with my raw, bloody hands
or plant my feet as wide apart as I could get them and attempt to
maintain my balance by holding my arms out and swaying along with the
train. In other words, I was going to have to be the person that all
the normal people went home and told their significant others about
later that night. And I worried about this, a lot, in the moments
before the train arrived, and then when the train did arrive,
it was like the nightmare came true. I stood, trying to hold myself
upright by clutching the pole with my fingertips and, when I could
manage it without looking like some kind of pervert, also by
squeezing it in between my bloody knees. For FORTY MINUTES I did
this. And when the train would stop? I would hold my hands up in the
air, ELEVATING THEM, to stop the bleeding. And although I suspected
that I was the lone Crazy Freak on the train, it wasn't completely
obvious until an entire seat opened up right beside me and after I
sat down – EVEN THOUGH THE TRAIN WAS STILL PACKED LIKE A SARDINE
CAN – no one had the nerve to sit down beside me.
This
is totally unrelated, but about a month after I had the incident with
the grate and the bleeding and the social outcasting on public
transportation thing, I went to the doctor for a sinus infection and
after she wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic I said, “You
know? I tripped and fell a few weeks ago, and my knee is still really
sore. Would you look at it and tell me if I should get it x-rayed or
anything?” AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID? She said no, that
I would need to call and get another appointment for someone to look
at that. Which I know, is probably a stupid insurance coding thing or
whatever, but OMG SERIOUSLY? All I wanted was for someone to look at
it and tell me, hey, it's probably fine. Or, you know? Maybe you
should have it looked at by a Knee Doctor or something. But she
looked me RIGHT IN THE EYE and said no, make another appointment. Is
that not the most RIDICULOUS thing you've ever heard? RIDICULOUS,
especially when I sat in the waiting room for 40 minutes and then the
exam room for another 30 and they want me to COME BACK and do it ALL
OVER AGAIN? I decided I would come back if my leg fell off instead.
AND THEN I WOULD SUE.
(My
leg never fell off.)
(I
would like to hear your public transportation stories, because I know
yours will trigger more of my own memories. I don't hold onto
memories well. As evidenced by the fact that I just watched an entire
episode of My First Place on HGTV that I didn't realize I'd seen
before until I was 27 minutes into it. THE SHOW IS ONLY A HALF-HOUR
LONG.)
