An affluent neighborhood. 7:30 in the morning. 5 degrees and sunny.

Public transportation is awesome.  Except when it’s not.  This morning, it wasn’t.  I get on to the train platform just as a train is leaving the station.  This is not a big deal.  The trains come every five minutes or so.  Not today.  The train immediately after the one I just missed broke down somewhere before my stop.  At first it was just a delay as they try to fix equipment problems.  This is not unusual for cold weather and the weather was a crisp 5 degrees this morning.  Then they announce that they’re emptying the defective train and have to move it out of the way.  Awesome.

From start to finish, it takes them about 45 minutes to accomplish this.  And soon, the defective train is rolling slowly past my station.  My feet are burning with cold at this point.  In the meantime, they take an outbound train and turn it around to try to get things back on schedule.  Only they choose the stop after mine to start.  Nice.  Finally, a train pulls into the station but it is jam-packed like you would expect a train to be after a 45 minute backup of people.  It then has to sit at my station for 5 minutes as the defective train gets out of the way somewhere up ahead.  Another train comes and there is just enough room for a few people to squeeze on and I make sure I am one of them.  Love your neighbor, people!  No time to be shy.

My connecting train pulls into the station the same time we do and I think the nightmare commute is finally over.  This train is also full, but I manage to squeeze on.  It should be smooth sailing from now on.  But wait, why have we stopped?  Equipment problems with the train directly ahead of us, you say?  Wonderful.  Add another 10 minutes to the already double time commute.  Ugh.

All told, a commute that normally takes 40 minutes door to door took just over an hour and a half.  The burning cold in my feet is only just now leaving my body.  Happy Monday!