How about your head? Or, maybe just all the contents from your purse?
Walk into any major Washington D.C. Metro station during rush-hour and you will see commuters, wearing business attire with sneakers, risking life and limb to cram onto crowded trains in an effort to shave a measly three minutes off their commute.
Let me set the scene for you:
It's 7:15 a.m. on Friday morning, my eyes-lids are heavy and my walk slowed. (I'm nursing a serious hang-over from one too many Hangar One Mandarin Blossom shots the previous night.) I step off the escalator just as a train is arriving.
The commuters already waiting on the platform group together around the doors and those just getting to the platform take off running towards the train. The chimes sound. The doors are closing. People are becoming frantic.
Just as I look up at the marquee and see that another train in coming in 1 minute, a middle-age woman leaps through the doors into one of the cars, crashing into the other riders who put out their hands to catch her. With the doors almost totally shut, a man decides that one minute is just too long to wait and sticks his right foot inside. The doors, which
do not operate like elevator doors, slam against his foot.
The man remains stuck for a few seconds before the doors reopen to let him pass. Another man takes advantage of the situation and hurriedly hops onto another car. He makes it but his back-pack doesn't. Now he's pegged against the doors with his bag stuck outside. Luckily for him, the doors reopen half-way. He quickly pulls his bag into the train, the doors slam shut and the train takes off down the tracks.
Another train pulls up 30 seconds later.
