RANDY WOOD, The: My Love-Hate Relationship with the Metro

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

My Love-Hate Relationship with the Metro

Oh how I love and hate the Metro system here.

I mean, I am not the biggest fan of cramming into it every morning with 100's of other sweaty bodies who just came from the rain and 85% humidity to equal like a heat index of 114 inside the metro as we all try to get to work before 9:00. I don't love having the blue and orange line going down every few weeks, getting derailed, or having to wait for people that feel that it is their duty to stand on the left side of the escalator while I have to wait, when that side is supposed to the "passing lane." I don't like when I hear that little "Ding dong, ding dong... doors closing" and I am scared for my life that it is going to guillotine my head off. And to make things worse, my roommate and my boss both downloaded that noise for their text message noise, so I have to hear it all the time and have nightmares about getting caught in the door. I hate that every line and then every car in that line has a separate and distinct smell... and baby it ain't flowers.

But I DO LOVE the crazy people that talk to themselves or yell obscenities to themselves while everyone else looks at them in silence. I do love walking into the metro and seeing fields of white ears (white iPod earbuds that is) and everyone grabbing their "Washington Express" newspapers and reading it on the go. And sadly I love when people smack into the little barricade things before their card is processed. (one lady even smashed her wheelchair into them and pieces of it broke off, I am evil because I started laughing, I guess you had to be there). I love the feeling that I don't know anything about how far it is in between metro stops, for all I know from Dupont Circle to Farragut North is three miles, when really it is like one block. haha. I love being able to swipe my little white card through the scanner that vacuum sucks it to the other side of the terminal and you walk through with ease. I love watching people get all flustered when someone's SmartTrip won't scan and they sit there scanning it over and over again while you hear "Humpff" noises and see rolling eyes. I love the time I pushed the seeing eye dog out of the door before it chopped its head off and the blind lady almost smashed into the subway. I love the big brown vented AC towers that pump cold air onto a platform. But mostly I love saving money on gas and getting places without having to figure out where I am in DC with a GPS stuck in traffic like the rest of the peeps here in "the district."

Oh how I hate and love the Metro.....