One of them BART peeps.

I've complained over and over about the people who take BART are generally stupid or just plain rude. Sometimes they attack. You can't get more diverse than a train full of random people.

Yesterday I was waiting in my usual line while listening to a podcast. The Dublin/Pleasanton train arrived and left, then the Fremont train arrived. The BART driver announced what train it was. The doors nearest my line didn't open. I saw the stickers on the door, which meant the doors weren't going to open, but the BART driver wasn't saying anything about that.

I, and the rest of the Fremont train people, stood still. Honestly I was waiting for the other doors on the car to open. And since I couldn't see further down the train, I just assumed the doors hadn't opened yet. And maybe I'm a little sheep-like. Just a tad.

That's when everyone in my line started hightailing it to the next car to get onto the train before the train operator (who was now showing signs of verbal annoyance with us all) decided to close up shop and take off.

I followed suit.

As soon as the doors closed to the car, the operator told us all as a reminder that the doors on the first car would not open (dummies). And at each stop, after the doors had closed, the BART operator announced that the doors weren't going to open on the first car. And he did so with much annoyance in his voice.

The obvious question is why didn't he make these announcements as soon as the train arrived so that everyone waiting for the first car could start walking to the next cars and actually get on the train. But this is BART. And BART doesn't always make sense.

In the past, I would have been one of those who were totally with it and knew the doors weren't going to open. Before any of the people waiting to get onto the car realized what was going on, I'd be sitting pretty on the train, thinking, "man, what a bunch of idiots!"

Now I'm just as stupid as everyone else it seems.

Give up the seat already!

Some minor details I must give before going into my story.

• It was, oh, about 95 degrees going home today, at 5PM. On public transportation, that means it's oh, about 150 degrees with a ton of human stink added to the mix (including my stanky feet - I fully admit my feet are STANKY).
• BART is on an alternate, much SLOWER schedule than normal due to some fire in May. Due to this fire, it's added an additional 10-20 minutes onto people's commutes. Going home is much worse than going to work.
• Now that gas costs half a paycheck, more people are taking BART in lieu of driving.
• Men still don't give up their seats for anyone, including pregnant women and handicap folks. Unless you're my husband, then you will (that's why I keep him around).

Okay. So with that said. I managed to get my coveted window seat going home. A middle aged man...wait, I'm middled aged or just about...a man older than myself was sitting in the aisle seat next to me. Miraculously, the bench facing us had two women sitting on it. Very very rare these days for three women to sit. Very rare indeed.

The man passed out (conveniently) after I blocked my iPod from his view. I so hate looky-loos. You can't hear, why would you possibly want to watch something when you don't even know what is going on? At some point he came too. I knew this because he sat himself up straight. His BART sleeping technique was chin the chest.

And older man was standing right behind the man next to me. For ease of story, we'll call the man next to me 'Lazy' and the older man 'man.'

Man says to no one in particular "I've been standing up all day! I tell you!" But not in a complainy way. Just in an I'm an older man and I'm tired, and I've been standing up all day, working like a dog at my job, and that's just how it is, and now I'm trying to get my tired bones home, and here I am standing.

Lazy says, "Oh really?" PAUSE..... "Here, take my seat...."

Man says, "Oh no, it's okay! I stand on my feet all day, I'm so used to it, but thank you very much."

And older lady was standing in the aisle in front of man and Lazy. She says something good in good humor.

Lazy says, "Oh, okay."

That's right, no insistence, nothing. Not even a nod to the older lady to ask her is she might want his seat.

Man says, "Thank you very much, but I don't mind standing. I stand for a living."

Lazy says, "Oh, I couldn't do that. I sit all day. There is NO WAY I could stand all day!"

Man says something, lady says something, laughter, guffaws, etc..

Then Lazy has the nerve to talk about how his commute is oh so much longer now, that he doesn't normally take BART at this time, and so he can't believe how crowded it is and whoa is me and so on and so forth.

The lady keeps talking to him, and he never once offers his seat to her.

I am sickened by people like Lazy. I know he only offered his seat because man said what he said, which in and of itself is sorta annoying because why say that if you aren't going to take a seat offered to you, but still.

And before you ask why I didn't get up and give my seat to anyone, I was watching my iPod and simply could not be bothered. Plus, if I had to stand up, my feet would have sweat more and the train would of had to be evacuated. For every one's safety, it's best I was seated.

Another Friday on BART.

Last weekend there was a fire at the BART yard that then caused the BART folks to decide to eliminate the train going to Richmond (for once, my goodness, how many times do people going to SF have to transfer? it's about time the Richmond people suffer), and this topped with the heatwave (people passing out, trains passing out), has caused BART to be no fun at all this week. No fun at all.


I left work at 4:30, pretty much knowing it was going to be a mess for some reason, and low and behold, I was correct. The trains were all running late. So what would normally be a sorta kinda full train turned into a cattle car.


I was first in line on my side; some tall skinny man was first on his side. He, of course, being male and young and having nothing wrong with him, had to dart onto the train and get the first available and easy to get to seat. I was next, so I head to to back, where there were what looked to be two free window seats.


I usually avoid sitting in the back row because stinky homeless people tend to live back there, leaving their stink and funk and garbage. But when there is no where else to sit, I'll succumb to the ick.

Both guys sitting in the back rows were in aisle seats. I turned to the one on my left and said, "Excuse me," while gesturing to the window seat. That's when I saw he had fifty bags piled up in the seat next to him and on the ground.

ARGH!

To show my disgust with him, I waved my arm down at him and said "ugh!"

I turned to the guy on the right, who should have known he was my next "excuse me" victim, and he too had a bag on the seat next to him.

Come on, people! It's the busiest time on BART and you really think it's okay to do that??? Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, you're all dumb, dumb, dumb!

He actually got up for me, and so I actually got to sit down. The only complaint I have about sitting next to him was that he had slight BO, and every time he'd lift his arms up to adjust his newspaper, I'd get hit in the face with his stink.

At the next station another lady tried to sit down next to the guy with 50 bags, but he just smiled and gestured towards his bags like, "well, as you can certainly see, I have 50 bags in this seat, so you, my dear, cannot actually sit down." She glared at him.

The young man who rushed onto the train to get a seat before anyone else never once gave it up for anyone, even these two ladies who, I'd like to think were doing this to make a point, but probably not, were sitting in the aisle.

It's pretty amazing.

Actually what amazed me more was that neither lady stood up to get out of people's way when they were trying to leave the train.

Just another fun Friday evening in extremely hot weather while on BART.

Say it like it is, did I say?

One thing about taking public transportation almost every day is is you begin to realize how we, as human, just don't care about each other. I admit, I do this most times myself because I just really don't want to be bothered and I tend to attract sucker on-ers who won't leave me alone and all I want to be is left alone. But there are two things I will always do, one sparked more from my pregnancy than out of kindness (and, as we all know, I'm not kind, at least my friends don't think so - thanks, friends!), and one out of just being considerate and polite.

The first thing I will do is give up my seat for an older person, handicapped person or pregnant person. I will not bum rush the train for a seat if I know there are others trying to get on that probably should be sitting down more than me, and I definitely will not try to get to a recently vacated seat on a cattle car train because that fight just isn't worth it.

Interestingly enough, on Friday, I gave up my seat for an older gentleman with a cane. And, even more interesting, I got to sit back down almost immediately, without fighting any men for the empty seat.

So there I was, reading away. The bench next to me was perpendicular to my bench. A man sat in the window seat, the aisle seat was occupied by a young lady with a suitcase blocking the aisle (another pet peeve -- if you plan on taking a train, sit somewhere where you're not blocking everything!), two bags on her lap, and she was reading a book.

At some point, the man next to the window needed to get off the train. So what does this girl do? She leans ever so slightly into the aisle, not attempting to make much room for him to get out into the aisle. In order to do so, he had the almost push his groin into my face. This, I did not appreciate, but I knew it was her fault and not his.

I rolled my eyes and huffed but let it go.

Never once did she looked up from her book, but she did make some noise indicating displeasure of having to move.

There was an older man standing, and he decided to sit down in the vacated window seat. I thought, okay, after what happened last time, this girl will at least attempt to get up and get out of the way, and who cares about your f-ing bags and your stupid book, just get up, you lazy jerk of a person.

What does she do? She leans ever so slightly into the aisle.

I was pissed. You just don't do these sorts of things to people! Especially older people who could possible fall on top of me! I will always get up and get out of the way, no matter how many bags I'm totting. It's just common courtesy. I would give her more leeway if she was old or crippled or pregnant, but she was visibly none of these things.

"You can stand up and not be so rude," I said and probably really loudly since I was listening to my music and I tend to talk loudly regardless.

She started spouting off stuff at me, but, as I've said, I couldn't hear anyone's voice because of my music. And I realized that this was really the best way to go when you want to tell someone what an inconsiderate idiot they are. I ignored her, she eventually went back to reading, and when the man wanted to get off the train, she did her same thing, leaned ever so slightly into the aisle.

As the people behind her wanted to move forward, she would move her suitcase blocking the aisle ever so slightly as well.

Obviously the world revolved around her. Obviously I didn't realize this. And even more obvious, she hasn't met my 15-month old who KNOWS the world revolves around him.

Complaint I'm sure I've complained about before.

I'm so sick and tired of really tall daddy long legs men sitting next to me on BART. Why do they insist on folding their bodies up so they can sit next to me when there are plenty of available seats with no seats in front of them? Why oh why?

I spent most of my BART ride this morning dealing with this 8-foot tall daddy long legs whom fidgeted to no end because I never once gave up an ounce of room for his spindly legs and arms. He eventually hunched himself over while sticking his bent legs off to the aisle side so he could read his newspaper. I don't know if these men assume since I am smaller than them that I am willing to squeeze myself up next to the BART train wall, but it's simply not happening. And yes, if you start pressing your legs up against mine, I'm still very much inclined to start whacking you with my knee.

And don't get me started on having to ask them to move so I can get out. The unfolding of the daddly long legs body takes an impossible amount of time.

Laughing is so not a good thing.

Riding BART and laughing apparently don't mix.

My husband and I have taken BART together about 4 times or so since I went back to work, and during those times, we both enjoyed watching The Flight of the Conchords on his lovely and very colorful video iPod. Unfortunately, this show is really funny, well, to us, at least, and so while we watch it, we both tend to laugh. It's much easier to laugh outloud with you're laughing outloud with someone else who is laughing outloud. It's also easier to laugh outloud by yourself when you're sitting next to someone you know than when you're alone, although I've been known to laugh outloud when I am by myself, and you'd think that would be annoying because there you are, all alone, and laughing, and no one's sure why and you don't have someone to turn to and say, "hey, this is sooooo funny, read this part!" but really, people tend to deal with solo laughter better than coupled laughter for some reason. I guess it's just easier to ignore. Sorta like when a crazy lady is attacking someone on BART or when someone is obviously about to blow chunks all over the BART train floor. People will slyly look up with one eye, but quickly look away because there is no way they're going to get involved, hell no, no way.

So the other day we were watching the show during the morning commute, which I fully admit is the worst time to do any sort of fun and frolicking because people are tired and grumpy and just want to sleep, but since I hardly take BART with my husband and he's the one with the video iPod and not me (mine is old and tired and a bit possessed at this point from being corrupted so many times not to mention it's in color), I was going to watch it and that's that.

I was really tired that morning, so while I found many parts of the show funny, I never really laughed. My husband was, however. And at some point, something did happen that was really funny, so we both started laughing. That's when the lady sitting in front of my husband decided to turn her head to the side and give us a dirty look and then she sighed heavily before returning to her book.

The thing that really gets me about her doing this is that there was a man and a woman standing in the aisle right next to her, having a normal-volume conversation. Why is that not annoying and why didn't they get a dirty look? Or maybe they did, since we were behind her, I wouldn't really know. But if two people are having a fun time and laughing, then this creates all kinds of annoyances for people. Are they feeling self-conscious? That we're laughing about them? Really, how often does that happen outside of situations where you know the person you're laughing at?

There was another time when we were going home, and during the home commute almost anything is okay to do because while people are tired, they're also wound up from the day, and I let out a huge laugh because of the show, and I scared the crap out of some men near us.

And because embedding is so fun, watch this!

What should you never say to a pregnant lady at the BART station?

"Go, go, go" while riding her back as she is trying to get on the train.

Expletives WILL be said and husbands WILL NOT take kindly to their pregnant wives being talked to like they are cattle.

I'd give the whole story, but I know my mom will have something to say about me keeping my mouth shut and so on and so forth, so I'll just leave it at that. Let's just say it's a good thing no one called the BART police because someone may have been cited. Or put in jail. I'm not quite sure how that works.