That said, there are of course a few downsides to driving, the biggest probably being the cost. Not only do you have to factor in the cost of gas and parking, but also any potential tickets for, you know, nicking the occasional tourist with your front bumper (kidding). Any other downside (traffic, metro buses, etc) are not so terrible, as long as it’s not too extreme. I accept the morning rush hour, but get frustrated when there are additional delays for something completely ridiculous. But I’ll get to that later.

So instead of “Musings from the Yellow Line” I’m switching to this – Musings from 14th Street. It might change too – you can expect to occasionally see a musing from 395N (exciting, no?).

Today’s musing (or rant…) is about my commute yesterday morning. When I woke up I had a few urgent work requests that I had to finish before even thinking about embedding myself in traffic. So I did, and ended up leaving home at about 8:45 – later than my usual departure time. Traffic on 395 was amazing actually, quite open and fast – I was pleased. Then, as expected, at the 14th street bridge it started backing up. This is no surprise – normally 395 starting at the 14th street bridge is always backed up until about 10am, but I noticed as I kept driving that the backup was on 14th street, not on 395.

Nice, no?

I’ve sat through traffic on 14th street plenty of mornings, but there was something wrong with this backup. It just wasn’t moving at all. As I approached the first light, I watched as it changed five times while I didn’t move an inch. About half-an-hour later I was finally close to Constitution and got a glimpse of what was causing the problem. Well, what I thought was causing the problem. A bus had nicked a car and was stopped in the middle of the street.

Then, as I merged and continued driving, I noticed the real reason traffic was so terrible.

Construction. Construction on 14th street in the middle of rush hour. Really? Really, DC? And to add to it, they shut down two lanes instead of one. Can anyone even see what they’re working on? The road looks perfectly fine to me.

It continues to baffle me the endless problems with driving in the city that are caused simply by poor planning. Would it be that hard to shift the construction hours to run later, starting at about 10am? Or, alternatively, ever seen those poor souls out on the Bay Bridge at 3am? Must not be much fun for them, but it certainly makes sense.

I write this as I prepare to depart for work again this morning, ready to sit in traffic for twice as long as is usually necessary as I got this DC Alert this morning: “Power outage downtown continuing through rush hour. Street closings: 12th St. NW from G St. to New York Ave. H St. NW from 11th to 13th St. Traffic lights out: Pennsylvania Ave. from 18th to 21st. Outage.”

Great. See you all in a few hours.

Gas, as we all know, is expensive, and parking in DC is atrocious, but when it comes down to it I’d rather spend 45 minutes in traffic with the windows rolled down and music turned up, than take the metro. I’d rather spend $10 per day on parking and probably more per day on gas, than take the metro. I actually enjoy driving with all of the other assholes in DC; I enjoy being cut off and then giving the finger; I enjoy being frightened as helicopters going to the Pentagon fly what seems to be only a few feet above my car; I enjoy playing the daily death match with the oversized metro buses and irate cab drivers.

Today, though, I rode the metro. My parents had an extra ticket to the Nationals game (vs. Pirates) and asked if I wanted to join. “Sure!” I said, jumping at the opportunity to go to a ballgame. In the end, it made more sense for me to take the metro to work, and then take the metro to the game as well. So that’s what I did.

I woke up this morning, dreading the metro, and making any and every excuse to myself to drive. Somehow I dragged myself to the corner and waited for the shuttle. It was late. The shuttle ride went along with no problem, and when I got to the metro the yellow line was scheduled to arrive in only one minute. Hurrah! Things seemed to be going well. I boarded the train and got a seat right next to the door, facing front, with no one sitting next to me. I quietly celebrated my good luck.

See that last sentence? That’s where I went wrong. Never celebrate your good luck, and if you ever do, patiently wait for the other shoe to drop.

I had my Sodoku book with me so spent most of the train ride finishing a puzzle. With the puzzle complete, I put the booklet away, put my purse on my lap, my computer bag between my feet, and closed my eyes for a little pre-work nap.

A few stops passed, and we arrived at L’Efant plaza. I kept my eyes closed. Suddenly, I felt my computer bag moving by my feet. I opened my eyes to see a man standing over me, grabbing the bag. He looked up, saw my eyes open, and jumped backwards a bit, still holding my bag. As he started to walk off the train, I instinctively stuck my leg out in front of him and half-tripped him. It must have done the trick because he dropped my bag and ran. The doors to the metro closed. It took maybe 15 seconds for all of this to happen.

Weird, no? The train wasn’t crowded as it usually is during rush hour, but it wasn’t empty either, so it’s hard to say if anyone would have helped me had he actually taken my bag. The people waiting to board the train stood there and watched this all happen. Some decided to push past the man and completely ignore what was happening as they boarded the train. I didn’t really yell for help or anything, I think all I said was, “hey!” The entire experience was surreal. I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet. I was never scared, or angry, I was simply confused. Why had this man tried to take my computer in front of all of these people? And, why had he given up so easily? It was a tired, lazy attempt at theft, especially considering that a 20-something year old woman, who was also half-asleep, stopped him.

That’s my story. Tonight I will take the metro to RFK, but you can bet your life savings I’ll be driving to work tomorrow.

yes!!

Another confidential document! I wonder what I can find out today, I thought. Carefully, because people always watch for over-the-shoulder readers (I know I do), I positioned my Sodoku so I could read with my peripheral vision (it’s possible with practice). He shifted in his seat and I pretended to count, mumbled numbers. What I read, though, wasn’t as interesting as I had expected. The sheet had a column of Arabic words with a column of the English translation.

Here were the words I managed to type in my phone before he noticed what I was doing:

To state

Advisor

Interior Ministry

Recruiting

Organizing

To form

Battalion

Belong

Ethnicity

Doctrine

Security Mission

My first question was: why is this confidential? The document was literally two pieces of paper — a cover sheet with the word “confidential” in bold and all caps, and the list of words. The man reading them was reciting them over and over again in Arabic. Confidential?? Languages, as far as I know, are not “restricted” or “below secret”.  Was there something else on the list? I looked. I looked for a header, a footer, anything that would specify where the list came from. There was nothing.

So who cares, right? The list itself is the most interesting piece of this (waste of time) metro ride (stupid metro). Many of the words by themselves would be interesting, but not necessarily catch someone’s eye. The words together, however, well that’s a horse of a different color. The whole experience was amazing to me — symbolic of something in our time that will not and cannot be replicated. A simple list of words that says so much.

I wonder what someone living in the United States eighty years from now would think if they saw that list. And to the same effect, I wonder what someone eighty years ago…or even only ten years ago, would think of this list. And how would those peoples thoughts be different from mine? or yours?

 And then…”ladies and gentlemen we will be moving soon, the green line train is directly in front of us, we will be moving shortly.” After another full minute of false starts, we moved, and 4 seconds later we were pulling into the next stop.

I don’t blame the driver (necessarily) –  maybe he was bored, or he gets a lot of crap from people and wanted to have some fun, or maybe there was something wrong with the train. What bothers me is that when this kind of thing happens on the metro, there is never any explanation. This week  there was a fire at farragut north station. The cause: a short circuit. A pain in the ass to be sure, and yet another example of why the DC metro is a terrible mode of transportation, but at least we know why.

I don’t need a newspaper article explaining why the driver on this particular train did what he did, I just want some explanation, an announcement, something! anything! I know I won’t get one, I hold no high hopes … sigh.

Kleenex could have some free ad’s on the trains and busses, and we could all avoid plague-like-diseases.