Friday, July 9, 2010

Dear Tourists of Washington, D.C.

If you don't start listening to the announcements/picking up on the patterns that we D.C. Commuters know, love and live by - I am going to write, nay, paint a lovely poster for you so that you may realize what you are doing wrong and why we dont sympathize with you when your arm gets stuck in the Metro door.

Tips from a fully frustrated commuter:

1) When you hear the announcement that the doors are closing, or see the blinking red lights in the door way this is not, I repeat is not, the time to play daredevil and try and make the train. Chances are, there is one right behind the one you are trying to get on. If not, well get to the platform earlier next time but please, do not delay us because you have to make this train. You don't. When the door closes on your purse, your backpack, the tent that you are carrying in said backpack, (or funnier yet) your arm - We dont have much sympathy. Why? Because most likely, it is rush hour that you are doing this during so we are already in a crunch to get to our paying jobs and now the door will (hopefully for you) re open and try and close again. This is a delay. If you continue to stand in the door, it will close on you again... I just may laugh. Then I get to hear a lecture from the conductor on proper Metro door etiqitte, which doesnt make me any more thrilled that you actually made it.

2) When standing on the platform waiting for the train you probably hear an announcement that suggests (read: demands) that you allow passengers to exit the train before you enter the train. This is a safety thing, seriously. When the train stops notice that commuters part to the sides of the doors leaving you and your 8 kids & a stroller standing directly in front of the doors... and people trying to exit. When you push your kids onward this upsets/causes a hold up at the entrance of the train. When you all link arms and try to enter, you make us all upset. Move to the sides and get enter the train like the rest of us do.

3) When your card does not work to allow you in to the metro, Do not stand there and try to force your all day pass in especially during rush hour. We're just trying to get home, sometimes our cards dont work either, it happens - just step to the side or find a less crowded gate but dont hold the rest of us up.

4) Grosvenor has a silent 's'.

5) On the escalator the rule is "Stand Right, Walk Left", standing in the middle may result in a slight shove and/or language. Disclaimer: I have not shoved someone nor used language I would not use at work, but have been the witness to this ocassion many times, the general feeling on the end of the receiver is confusing because they dont know the rule. There is a pattern in all things, just look for it.



That is all I have for now. I called J to rant about this after work and he could not stop laughing. He said " I got your text, I think it said that you dislike tourists on the Metro... Do you remember that was us at one point? " Yes, dear, that was us at one point. However we stood on the right side, realized rush hour was not the time to be at the Metro but rather eating good things like METRO (Silver Diner), Cosi, and Panda Buffet, and "metro surfed" on empty cars rather ones full of people. We were the fun kind of tourists. When I see people like us running around exploring, I smile.

**I sound terribly bitter and angry. Im not. Its all in good fun, until because of your chain link family entering the Metro it is my arm/purse that gets caught ...There may be a problem.

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