You Won't Believe This Dump on Metro Car

At first I thought it was a rotten banana but it turned out to be a human dump on the floor of the WMATA metro car that I was on the other day. Actually, I really couldn't believe what I was seeing so I edged a little nearer and decided to photograph it hoping that it would turn out to be a joke or something but it looked real enough and I snapped it using the miracle of a cell phone camera. A few other passengers looked at it and looked away. No-one could say anything to anyone else as everyone was embarrassed by it.No one could look another in the eye.  I mentioned this nasty to a couple of co-workers who didn't believe me until I showed them the photo. One asked if I reported it and I had to say I hadn't but then again, when I got off at the station (Convention Center) the train was taken out of service, so I assumed the train would  be cleaned. Someone theorized that maybe it was left by an animal and began suggesting some rather large dog breeds. I didn't think so as the only dogs that get on metro trains are service animals for people with disabilities and they are very well-trained and are very unlikely to do something like this. And most pet dogs are very well trained, too.  All I could think was that some human had somehow done this and walked away. I think anyone seeing this is left aghast at how it happened. Maybe someone didn't know there are bathrooms in most metro stations? Maybe someone did it deliberatedly as a dare? I'm still hoping someone contacts me saying it was just a prank. What do you think?

Fried Chicken a la WMATA

Munching on fried chicken leg

WMATA bus

People drinking coffee, sodas, water and other slurpable items on the bus always annoy me but this fried chicken eater is over the top.  What was amazing was that this person got on the WMATA bus with the bag of hot fried chicken open, the greasy seared smell of it wafting into the bus and right under the nose of the driver who said nothing and did nothing. There are plenty of signs on the bus that say No Eating or No Drinking but apparently these mean nothing. By the time I got my cell phone camera lined up -- and I've finally figured out how to set it so it does not "click" when it takes a photograph, thus avoiding dirty looks from fellow passengers -- a second drumstick was wafting its oily rancid smell into the chilled air of the bus.  Traffic was moving quickly and my bus stop was next, so I got off, my nausea arrested. Thank God for small things!

Coca Cola, Starbucks, Dasani: Drinks of Choice on #WMATA Buses

Coca Cola, Starbucks and Dasani water were the drinks of choice by passengers on the G2 metrobus coming home one evening recently. The morning's bus passengers enjoyed iced coffees, water and one rather foul-looking green grassy looking liquid (something very healthful no doubt). These passengers get on the bus openly carrying their big girl sippy cups and enjoy their rides sucking down their drinks of choice. Several of them are regulars (the lass carrying the green-filled glass, for instance, gets on the bus each day with this breakfast drink) and most of them look like they are quite literate -- as in able to read the sign at the front of the bus that says "no food or drinks."  When I see these beverages passing by me I tend to lean away and desperately hope the passenger with the soupy, sugary slurpee doesn't drip it or drop it near me as the bus lurches its way through construction, potholes and sudden stops brought on by those idiots who insist on turning right from the left lane passing across the front of the bus at various intersections. You know when it happens as the bus driver gasps or cusses or otherwise expresses indignation at being put in such a spot.  But rarely, actually never, do I see a bus driver say to the passenger with the drink "don't get on" or "throw it away" or "put it away."   Does the bus driver expect other passengers to admonish these scoff laws?  Am I supposed to bare the glare of youth who think they are entitled to a cold drink on the bus the same way they got a nice sippy cold cup from mum in the family mobile when she picked them up from school? Just what is this expectation that one can eat and drink at will on a public bus?  Is that what freedom means?  Due to this laxity in the regulations, the lovely cloth-covered seats in the newer buses are getting stained with the remains of either these drinks or food or snacks.  More and more often I pass by a seat with something suspicious-looking on the seat and try and find another spot.  I expect I'll end up being a real little old lady and having to bring a little cloth with me to sit on so my work clothes don't get all dirtied up. Really, when are the bus drivers going to start acting like the authority figures they want us to be when an emergency occurs.  It is hard to respect them now when they can't even enforce this simple law. Do they really think anyone will listen when they really try to take control of the bus in some sort of emergency situation?

No Parking in the Sunflowers in DC

I forgot to publish this photo when I snapped it while waiting at the bus stop at the corner of P and 16th Streets NW last summer. This "No Parking" sign 'grows' among the sunflowers that someone had so nicely planted in the tree box alongside the church there. I believe this is the Foundry United Methodist Church which President Clinton occasionally went to when he was in office.  These tall flowers certainly made standing waiting in the heat for the #G8 WMATA bus a lot more tolerable as it was late again (!) and watching traffic really isn't that interesting! A big thank you to whoever planted these! Blessings on you!

WMATA G8 Bus Route Gets Ever More Crowded

Sitting on the bus the other day jammed in and watching how it kept getting more and more crowded with strap hangers, so many that the driver had to pass by people at several stops, who looked a bit on the angry side, naturally, as it was Monday morning and who wants to miss the bus and be late on a Monday morning? And it's not as if another bus comes right away.

I can Hear the Music on Your Headphones on Metro Bus

Very loud music playing on these earphones

Surely you are damaging your ears if I can hear the music you are playing and listening to on headphones on the bus.  This young man was sitting right in front of me on the bus the other morning and I could almost every word sung, the crashing beat of the music and all the "noise" that he was listening too.  I'm pretty sure the rest of the bus could hear it too but nobody said anything.  Once I did say something to one person who was playing very raucous rude rap that had horrible curse words in it and I leaned over and asked him "would you turn the music down as i can hear all the way from where I am sitting?"  And he did turn it down. He had been sitting about three seats away from me on the bus and yet I could hear it.  I'm sure these people are damaging their ears when they do this.  At a minimum, they are missing out on the sounds about them and could miss warnings or alerts, but I'm not so worried about that. As a morning person who doesn't like loud sounds -- like alarm clocks and phones and beeping things -- I just don't want to have to hear crashing loud music on the bus in the morning!

Enough with the Sippy Cups on the Bus

The drunks on the bus are bad enough with their retching and careening and stinky clothes, but it's the far more often seen passengers clutching cups of coffee or other hot drinks on the bus that I find most annoying. One young lady squeezed past me recently, sat down and calmly sucked on her little sippy cup of coffee, the odor wafting towards me, for the rest of the bus ride. Every time the bus lurched, I was afraid that she would slurp her drink on me or the cup would fall and spill on my clothes. Another passenger sat openly on the bus holding his styrofoam cup of steaming coffee and taking the lid off every once in a while for a big gulp. I really don't know why the WMATA drivers let people on with their sippy cups as the signs are quite clear that passengers are not supposed to eat or drink on the bus and there's even a new sign that says "a bus is not a deli so don't treat it like one."  Scoffeelaws?

Another Rant About Late & Packed DC Metrobuses

In this cold snap of weather we're having I'm finding myself very irritated when the bus is late, or crowded, or fellow passengers are well, just disagreeable. This week has been difficult.  On Monday morning I waited 20 minutes and the first bus that came was packed with passengers so the driver didn't even stop and waved to the fifteen (!) of us that were now waiting at the stop to indicate that another bus was coming. So we all got on that a few minutes later, a bus that filled very quickly by the next stop and was jammed with Monday morning scofflaws holding steaming cups of coffee that I felt sure would be spilled on me. Why do the drivers let people bring cups of hot liquid with them? On Tuesday, I missed the bus as it came earlier to the stop than the schedule indicated and I saw it whizzing gaily past at the top of the intersection, too far away for me to run and try and hail it..Someone said it was the earlier bus, but just running late. Oh well. On Wednesday, I waited in the cold wind again during another ice age while going home and it seemed like everyone on the bus was coughing and not covering their mouths.  Thursday, the bus was totally packed again and some little girl kept sneezing and wiping her nose with her hand and then -- watching in horror -- I saw her touching just about everything she could reach within arm's length, like the hanging strap, the hand rail, the overhead bar, the rim of her seat and the rim of all the seats around her. Truly, I was getting grossed out as over a ten minute ride she sneezed three times and did this. Did I mention my SmartTrip card didn't work half the time on the electronic meters, even though I know it has over $40 on it? I'd wave it over the sensor and the stupid thing wouldn't beep or the screen would give up an unintelligible illegible message so I'd ask the driver "did it work?" and they'd just wave me past as this was happening to every other passenger getting on the bus and the drivers really are trying to keep to the schedule, I think. And the stinking smokers! People whose clothes stink of cigarette smoke shouldn't be allowed on buses when it's packed as there is just no seat to shift to and get away from it. And what about those people who start cursing and running their mouths at any ole provocation or who glance at you sideways because your bag brushed against them? The bus is jammed full, buzzbreath!  Tomorrow's Friday, so who knows what irritating thing will happen?  Maybe, it's just this long cold stretch of winter causing me to feel like I might dump out a hot coffee on someone, stomp on someone's toe and utter some unladylike verbal exclamationsl!.

DC Metrobus G8 Kept Me Waiting in the Cold Too Long!

Twenty-five minutes is too long to wait for a bus on a cold Monday morning! After waiting for about ten minutes in the freezing windy cold at 8:50 am on Rhode Island Avenue along came a bus!  However, it zoomed right past with the driver apparently unable to tell the standing passengers to "move back" so he could say he had no room for the six of us waiting.  So he didn't stop. You'd think another bus would come along within a few minutes? Nope. It was another fifteen minutes later before a bus arrived for us poor freezing passengers. And the driver had draped a jacket over the Coin/Smart Trip fare machine as apparently that wasn't working well either. Or were we given a free fare as we'd waited so long for the bus?  How can DC Metrobus keep on not running enough buses to pick up passengers on time IN THE MORNING?  It wasn't raining. It wasn't snowing. The traffic wasn't even heavy. It's not like this isn't a busy route as there's usually at least half a dozen passengers at this G8 stop every day and the bus fills up. And why the no-fare or broken fare machine?  On reflection, at least once a week I get on a bus and the fare machine is broken or not working or the driver just waves us past. How can WMATA make any money this way?  Just what is going on?

Aggravating Glitches in the Ole City Today

I should have known when I missed the bus this morning that this was one of those days when things would go wrong. Once at work it turned out my computer was infected with some nasty virus that SOMEONE had sent me so I couldn't use it. I tried to use another available computer but all the settings and seating and configurations were not familiar so I gave up and took a break. I went to the bank to deposit some checks and guess what, there was no pen to fill out the form that goes with the deposits and I hadn't carried my bag with pen with me as I'm trying to carry less with the slipped disk I have. There was no one around to borrow a pen from so I trudged back to my office for a pen and tried it again. Lo and behold there was a pen at the bank by then and which I didn't need. Some trick that! Then I went down to the Metro station to see if I could get loaded on my Smartrip card the money that WMATA owes me -- from when a bus ate my $40 when attempting to add money to the Smartrip card on a bus. Guess what? I waited too long at Step #3 of the Smartrip reload process and it timed me out. Guess what? I tried it twice more and it still said 'Transaction Canceled.' Determined to get MY FORTY DOLLARS, and at the suggestion of the Metro station manager, I trudged again, in the heat, back aching, to another Metro station, and Lo and Behold, the card loaded the $40. So something worked. Determined to see if I was now on a good luck roll, and looking forward to lying on my back on a nice soft bed, I went home and found all the electric clocks blinking again --a sure sign that PEPCO turned the power off again. The neighbors tell me they do that to save power but I think it's because this is an old neighborhood with old wires and overloaded transformers and the demand is high (all those YOUNG PEOPLE with their always-on battery charging laptops & iPhones & iPods & iPads, air-conditioning on all day set high and X-boxes and TVs going all the time). But fortunately for PEPCO, they had the power on and I was able to lie down in some cool air and gather my wits from all the glitches of the day. Then I looked at my garden and thanked God for green and pink things.