Commuter Thought No. 2

BART commuters are creatures of habit.  We stand on the right side of escalator leaving left side open to commuters anxious to catch a train, running down the escalator as of their very lives depended on it.  At the receiving end of these rushing commuters, I imagine a big breasted, aproned matronly woman with curlers in her hair brandishing a spatula threateningly, a child coloring a scene from My Little Pony in her coloring book while a babysitter glances impatiently at the clock on the wall, or a scantily dressed lady lounging on an animal print chaise sipping red wine surrounded by artfully scattered rose petals and tea candle lights.  I chuckle at the thoughts.  What or whoever waits on the other end, commuters take daily rituals seriously.

You can spot a tourist or an occasional BART commuter right away because she will stand on the left side of escalator as if her action fits the schematics of BART commuter physics.  Soon a lefty commuter shouts down impatiently, "move over to the right if you are just going to stand there!"  Red cheek stained, the culprit turns around with a questioning look on her face quickly transforming into a look of dawning understanding when faced with so many impatient, sometimes angry visages looking down at her.  Muttering a quiet apology under her breath, she steps aside to the right and the dammed up commuters once again resume their torrential descent toward the train platforms.

While in the train, commuters must resist the gravitational pull toward the train doors with all our might.  On rainy days, trains are jam-packed but you find commuters opting for the crammed vicinity of the door with their faces pressed into smelly armpits amidst poking backpacks instead of moving further down the train car to enjoy the spacious isle.  This magnetic pull to the door prevents the rest of us to squeeze into the train.  A frustrated man shouts, "we want to go home too, now move into the isles and make room for the rest of us!"  The slow shuffling of feet loosens the magnetic, invisible cords wrapped around the commuters' waists chaining them near the doors.  The commuters waiting to board the train impatiently stomp their feet and rush in as soon as a slight opening in the sea of bodies is visible, to occupy any free space available.

Oddly, I find these random shouts of frustration amusing and satisfying.  As with habits, we become complacent and do not pause to think about or speak out about daily going-ons.  We walk around like those zombies in Shaun of the Dead, each in our thoughts, thinking of deadlines at our jobs or bills we have to pay sitting on our kitchen table waiting to be put in the mailbox, then WHAM!  The frustrated "now move over so I can catch my train" shout-out from our fellow commuter jars us out of our daily zombie walk, and we nod and mumble our full agreement.  We should be awake to live every moment of our lives, be it in the packed train cars surrounded by strange faces because, after all, we are alive.

*Photo courtesy of Will Harper, SF Weekly Blogs