The Time Has Finally Come

{DOORS OPENING}

A day many of us have been waiting for has arrived. Fairfax Connector bus lines will finally accept Metro’s SmartCards. In a rare, but clever move, to help facilitate the installation of the new hardware to process the fares, they’ve offered free rides on most bus lines the past two Fridays. It will be interesting to see how this affects ridership, as well as everyone’s overall demeanor. One thing that it probably won’t stop is the level of people who “slug” it in to work; something I’ve been doing pretty frequently lately, to the point that I’m finding myself riding in with the same folks every so often. Why? Well, nothing beats kiosk-to-door service (or relatively close to the door of your work).

{PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE DOORS.}

Regardless of whom I ride in with, I inevitably wind up in one of three places. Either I get dropped off at the Roslynn station, on the corner of 20^th and Pennsylvania (which is the northeast corner of my building), or somewhere on Constitution Avenue between 20^th and 18^th street, which is anywhere from four to ten blocks from work, depending on the general direction the driver is heading. I don’t mind the walk too much. It helps to wake me up when I’ve had a less-than-restful night of sleep.

The people I ride in with are a varied and interesting bunch. The ones worth mentioning are below:

Black Ford Valdez…err Excursion
Destination: Metro Center
People heading into Metro Center tend to stick to Constitution Avenue once they emerge from Route 66, so if there’s the opportunity, I’ll hop aboard. I’d never ridden in Ford’s flagship tank, so I thought I’d ride in, if at least just for the experience of it. Climbing aboard, I feet a little a dirty for having ridden in such a gas chugging monstrosity. Nonetheless, this guy hauled ass on the roads in between the choke points on the toll road. Now, I’m typically not nervous about people’s driving habits, but what he did and had in his vehicle did make me grip the door handle a bit tighter than usual. In the center console was a twisted and confused mess of cables connecting to the following: 2 PDAs, iPod, XM Satellite radio, cell phone, and a GPA device. The worst part? He kept fiddling with any one of those at any given moment the entire trip. It was the first, and last, time I rode with him.

Red Toyota Minivan
Destination: Rosslyn
I’ve ridden in with this gentleman a few times. We always have the most interesting conversations, whether it’s politics, movies, or recent news developments. He’s a very intelligent Indian man who has some very insightful things to say, especially about politics, as he was very involved in politics in India as he is here. What makes it all the more enjoyable is that we both seem to think on the same wavelength, so we can both speak freely to one another. You can’t really go wrong when someone says that both the Colbert Report and the Daily Show have more credibility than most other television news outlets.

Green Subaru Station Wagon
Destination: Rosslyn
It’s not often that when slugging, you may share the ride with more than you and the driver. This particular instance involved two older women in the front, and me in the second row seats. The seat was particularly…crunchy…as it was strewn with various baby cookie crumbs and other things that I would prefer not to dwell on what they might have been. The car reeked of a combination of cigarette smoke (with the thin yellowish-gray film on the inside to prove it) and rotten wood. I could only roll the semi-functional window down a crack, which made the ride difficult to bear. To make matters worse, the women carried on and on about their families, their grandchildren, the “good old days,” all while reeking of some brand of perfume that, in my mind, had been discontinued in the mid 1950’s because of strychnine poisoning. I could not wait to go to the gym that day, simply just to sweat the stench out of my pores before taking a shower.

{STAND BACK! DOORS ARE CLOSING}