The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Woman is sitting on the skytrain in a seat facing and right next to a door. I am standing in the aisle of the same section of seats, but on the opposite side. I am blocking the path to the door because the standing area around these doors is full. Woman stands up to get off at next stop; turns away from the door she is right next to; walks down the aisle between seats and makes me awkwardly back up into the crowd so she can get to the more crowded door that she was sitting no where near.

That makes total sense to me. I know when I'm sitting on the train near a door, I always try to inconvenience as many people as possible on my way to a different door. Especially to get to a door that's already crowded; after all, there's lots of people there for a reason...maybe they all know that door opens to Narnia.

Pieces of You (Transit Rule #4)

Guy next to me on the skytrain is picking and pulling off the dead calloused skin from his palm. Eww, eww, eww.

Transit Rule #4: If whatever you are doing is going to result in pieces of you being left behind on transit, stop it!

Missed Connection

To the woman on skytrain this morning,

You were sitting in a seat. I was standing in front of you. The train was full. We were both getting off at production. You stood up and thought it was acceptable to try and shove past me to get off the train first. I used my inner rage to cut you off, retaining my rightful place in the train exiting order.

So whenever you are lady, I want you to know, you missed a connection this morning. It was the connection in your brain that joins common courtesy to skytrain etiquette.

Sincerely,
If you have a seat you can freaking well wait your turn to get off the train.

I feel like a broken record...

...but I'm not the broken one! It's all the other people, the ones who don't understand the concept of "move to the back of the bus" (or away from the doors or to the end of the train...pick the applicable description).

Today, I get on the skytrain and there's a cluster of people holding the pole that's right in between the doors. They clearly all know they should move to let people get on more easily, but apparently they just don't want to. So instead of moving away from the doors, they all just shuffle around the pole clockwise. Yup, totally helpful guys.
Then some guy standing near the door gets asked to move (which would be totally acceptable except it was by some woman who wanted the fold down seat right next to the door and she was neither elderly nor disabled). Now sitting woman is in the way and standing dude has moved away from the door and is standing directly in between the first pair of seats. Not only is there more standing room past him, there are empty seats! He's so determined to stand in the way that even after I basically push him out of the way so I can move to the back of the train, he still just stands 2 steps further back, refusing to take the 2 extra steps and sit in a seat.

Delays, inappropriate contact and a broken megaphone ...all in a day's commute

When I woke up this morning the first words my mother said to me were "Just so you know, the skytrain is having problems this morning." Thanks, mom. Good morning to you too. Now normally this would actually be good, because if they have problems early, then they can get them fixed before I get to the skytrain. Not this morning.
There's at least 2 announcements before I even board the train. "Attention passengers...we are experiencing major service delays..." There's probably 10 more before I get to transfer at Columbia.
As if spending close to half an hour to go 4 stops on a packed train wasn't enough fun, then we arrive at Columbia. The platform is full. There's a lady with a megaphone giving directions. She clearly did not receive megaphone training. She's either not speaking directly into the megaphone or its broken, because we still can't understand half of what she says. She also thinks that when a train is pulling out of the other side of the tracks is a great time to make an announcement. No really, we can totally hear your mumbled megaphone squawking over the sound of a skytrain gearing up.
After waiting for nearly 10 minutes as 3 or 4 expo line trains pass, we finally get a millennium train! We go one stop and are informed the train is being taken out of service.
Are. You. Kidding?!
Most of us pile off the train. I will never know if the people who stayed on are geniuses or lunatics. When another train arrives we all try to pile back on. I'm literally shoe-horning myself on, cramming myself between some woman and the doors that are trying to close. Seriously, some folks would pay money for the... attention... that woman got from me today. Sorry lady, I was not missing that train.
After all that I was actually only half an hour late for work ...which in my case doesn't actually mean anything anyway, since I can work when I want from where I want. But you know where I can't work from? From pressed up against the backside of some lady on the skytrain!
All in all, a frustrating hour and a half of my life that I will never get back.

Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?

I was getting on the skytrain at production station during rush hour today. A whole bus load and then some of people were also getting on an already crowded train. On the train, there was a girl standing right inside the doorway, not moving to the back, making it harder for everyone to get on and move farther inside the train.

Then as the last few people were trying to load, the true magic happened. Doorway girl turned to some guy who had just gotten on and said, "It would be a lot easier for everyone to fit if you took your backpack off."

...

Seriously?! I had no words. I'm pretty sure I just stared at her with my mouth hanging open. I thought that kind of irony was reserved for TV and movies.

Did you pay for 2 seats?

Because transit is already going so well for me today, I should have seen this coming.

I knew this girl was going to be trouble when she was first on (a soon to be very full) skytrain and didn't move all the way into the train. Then at the next stop, some seats cleared out and she sat in the window seat and I sat next to her. Mistake on my part, as I should have already known she had space entitlement issues.

As the photo shows, I ended up with 3/4 of a seat because she couldn't be bothered to take off her backpack and back her knees up and heaven forbid her legs touch her umbrella!

I should have stayed in bed

It's never a good sign when you get to the skytrain station and you hear the indistinct mumbling of an announcement over the skytrain PA system before you even hit the platform. All I managed to hear on my way up the escalator was "...trains will be held at or outside stations longer than usual." Never a good sign.

Now I've been on the skytrain for almost half an hour and have traveled two whole stations! There was another announcement that there was a medical emergency at Columbia (which obviously sucks worse for that person, but seriously, that's like the worst station to have a delay). Then to add insult to injury, I'm stuck on a train that's having trouble with its doors. Now that wouldn't be so bad if they were just stuck open or closed or halfway, but no ...they keep trying to close, but they don't stay that way. So we sit at the station listening to the repeated 'ding, ding, ding' of the doors closing then opening, closing then opening, closing then opening ... It's like Chinese water torture. I think the whole skytrain is starting to feel homicidal.

I would ask what else could go wrong, but I don't want to know.

Avert your eyes

Whenever I can hear someone speaking from across the skytrain, it is my natural inclination to try to figure out who is talking. So of course, when we got to a stop today and I hear someone saying, "Enjoy folks. Thanks for coming." and other such greetings one doesn't expect on the skytrain, I had to look to see who it was. Unfortunately in doing so I broke one of my own transit rules: "Don't make eye contact."

When I looked over towards the voice, I found myself eye to eye with self-appointed transit greeting man. Luckily the skytrain was full and we were several people apart, so I could quickly avert my gaze to avoid any unwelcome interaction.

In many situations eye contact is good. On transit, it is bad; eye contact only attracts the crazy. It is all the confirmation they need that you REALLY want to hear what they have to say. In the mind of the crazies, eye contact = let's be bffs. So unless you're craving your daily dose of crazy, just say no to eye contact.

Keep it out of your pants

One of the few joys of taking transit instead of driving yourself somewhere is the ability be on your phone without threat of a ticket or killing someone. That being said, if you're going to check your phone every 10 seconds while you're sitting next to someone, don't keep putting it back in your pocket!

The guy next to me on the train this morning clearly didn't understand this idea. He was playing some sort of game on his ipod, but had a separate phone that he kept checking. Since his hands were busy with his game though, he kept putting the phone back in his pants pocket, which meant he also kept jabbing me with his elbow. Seriously, dude, is your lap broken? Because you could save us both the trouble and just leave it there.

Standing is hard 2: So is my elbow

I accidentally clocked a guy in the head with my elbow on the skytrain today. It was actually an accident, not my usual passive-aggressive "accidental" bumping into idiots in my way. Also, clocked may be a bit strong. My elbow and his face certainly made contact; it was hard enough to feel, but not hard enough to hurt. Still, I felt bad ... briefly.

Then I realized how his face ended up in my elbow. I was getting up to leave the train, and so I was putting on my backpack. My elbow naturally swung out a little and that's when I felt his face. I assumed he was also getting off the train and I just hadn't seen him line up behind me. Oops, my bad, right? Wrong! He was literally trying to duck under my arm and practically slide right underneath me into the seat I was vacating.

Seriously...he was so desperate for that seat that he couldn't even wait until I was out of the way, never mind off the train. Plenty of seats were clearing, as many people were getting off at this stop, and he was already ahead of anyone boarding there for seats because he was on the train. That's some serious lazy that would rather take an elbow to the head than stand or even take a 'less desirable' seat.

Neon Ninja

You may have heard it said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, I think this girl must have skipped breakfast and thus her brain wasn't operating at full power when she dressed herself this morning. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why she thought this ninja-inspired footwear was a good choice.

Keeping it classy (with Transit Rule #1)

Over my headphones and from somewhere behind me on the skytrain, I hear some guy yelling at what I assume was his cellphone. He hangs up and a few seconds later there is this loud repeated banging noise. I look over and see angry yelling man doing what looks like kicking the skytrain door. Way to throw a tantrum, loser.

Then some guy from a few seats over says what we're all thinking, "Hey man, can you shut the f*#@ up?". I'm thinking to myself, "Oh no, this could end badly." Luckily some other guy distracted angry man by striking up a conversation.

That's one of those skytrain situations that can escalate quickly and leads to one of my rules for riding transit: "Always have an exit strategy."

By all means, you go first

You know what I love? When the skytrain is crowded and I step off to let people out instead of just crowding the doorway like an inconsiderate jerk. Then someone waiting on the platform, who could see me get off the train and step to the side just to let people off, decides to cut in front of me to get on the train.

By all means, you go ahead; I actually am just standing here by the train with the sole purpose of making sure the door doesn't close on you. I didn't actually want to get back on or anything.

Travelling with a herd

You know what sounds like a good plan? Take a group of teens on the skytrain at the start of rush hour. Get off at the busiest station in Surrey. Stand in a circle in front of the skytrain doors. Make sure you spread out enough to block the whole side of the platform with the unloading train. Yeah...I didn't see how that plan could possibly have gone wrong either.