This never ever works for me!!!

A long time ago, I was advised that if I got to the Montgomery Station and the Dublin/Pleasanton train was coming before the Fremont train, I was better off taking the Dublin/Pleasanton train and then transferring at Bayfair to the Fremont train. I would save about 6 minutes of my commute. Whooppeee. So I never do that. I'd rather wait for the Fremont train and have smooth sailing (and sleeping) until I get to Fremont.

So tonight I got to the BART station, and there were delays to the East Bay. They were only listing two trains on the overhead signs -- Dublin/Pleasanton ("D/P") and Pittsburgh/Baypoint ("P/B"). D/P was next, P/B was in 15 minutes. That means the Fremont train was either lost in the middle and they weren't listing it for some reason (this does happen), or it was coming after P/B -- after 15 minutes.

Did I want to risk waiting for 15 minutes? And risking having to get on the D/P train anyway?

So I decided (after being stuck in a mob of self-professed "non-commuters" coming from some conference) that if the D/P train came, and it was fairly empty, then I would just get on it. And then at Bayfair, I should get on the Fremont train coming from Richmond. Therefore, I would be saving myself some time, and I would get to sit down, and most importantly -- I would get out of the mob of conference attenders who didn't understand the concept of a line and who were currently surrounding me and chattering like little birds.

The D/P train came, the conference attenders got confused and almost got on this train (then I would of had to make a quick decision about not taking the train), it was pretty much empty, so I got on. My favorite type of person sat down next to me -- the type of person who smells like they don't shower but aren't B.O. stinky. It's more like a dusty, musty smell. I hate that smell. I'd almost prefer a B.O. smell. At least with B.O. you know the person doesn't care at all. With the musty/dusty smell, it just seems like the person didn't shower that day and thought they could get away with it. I was hoping she would get off the train before I had to, but she didn't, so I was stuck next to her until Bayfair.

At Bayfair, I got off and looked at the overhead signs. The next Fremont train was in 13 minutes. Waaaaiiiiitttt a minute. 13 minutes? And it's 9 cars? That sounds like a train coming from San Francisco if I ever read a description of one. That's definitely not a Richmond train going to Fremont. Sigh.

So I ended up waiting 13 minutes to take the train I could have taken directly from San Francisco. And for those of you who don't believe me when I can figure out which train is coming from which city, the same stupid conference attenders who surrounded me in San Francisco got off this train in Fremont. And I got stuck behind them walking to the escalator. Groups of 3 or more people really need to realize that you simply can't walk next to each other. You must buddy-up or leave someone behind.

When I finally got downstairs to the station, I had to swiftly maneuver around one of the men in the conference attenders group because he thought it was perfectly fine to step off of the escalator and then just stand there waiting for the 10 other conference attenders to group around him. Basically getting in my way and everybody else's. But hey, they NEVER take the train during commute hours. Lucky them.