La Métro de Matin (The Morning Metro)

I’m just putting this out there: Riding the metro in the morning sucks. When the bus shows up, it is full. Nobody gets out. Everyone at your stop tries to get in. This mass act is one of groupthink combined with unbridled optimism, the anal-retentive adherence to punctuality, and knowledge that the next train has just as many, if not more, damn people on it. Add to all that the sense of panic people seem to experience when the Metro buzzer sounds alerting all patrons to get their belongings and extremities through the door or forever lose a limb and you have quite a spectacle. The only thing worse would be to hand each of these people keys to horn-honking, gas-guzzling, air-polluting, overpriced vehicles made by underpaid workers and stick them on I-85 in downtown Atlanta. And I did say ‘each’ because We all know that carpooling is beneath most Atlantans. But I digress.

This morning on the metro, I was privy to a real treat. I could feel on the side of my leg the contents of the pocket of the person on my right and was wedged between him and the bar we were supposed to hold on to…unless you’re wedged in too tight to be able to move, in which case the bar is rather superfluous. I couldn’t lean back. I couldn’t lean forward. I couldn’t take a deep breath. But I was on the train. When the buzzer sounded, we all breathed in, took up the least amount of space possible, and prepared for the ride. Just as the doors were about to close, the eight or so people in the three feet (or almost one meter) in front of the door fell backwards into the 17 people behind them who fell into all those around me, causing a ripple effect across our train. The culprit: a woman with some sort of bag or suitcase under each arm was using these suitcases as makeshift battering rams, swinging them to her right and left, knocking people over and securing herself and her bags a place in our 35km/hour sardine can. Once all on the train had regained their composure, the gaze of the entire car fixed angrily upon this woman and her bags/suitcases/weapons.

She then began to set down her bags.

Her bags were laughing.

They had legs.

They weren’t bags.

Or Suitcases.

They were her children.

I wish I was making this up.

I’m just putting this out there: Riding the metro in the morning sucks.