The War for Couth Continues

So I mentioned the ferret-faced woman in my last post, and how a month or so went by until I saw her again.

When I got on at Civic Center this time, someone was in the window seat next to the chair I usually go for, so I sat an aisle back. The train got crowded quickly after that, and I noticed an elderly couple  looking for seats together; they might have been Indian immigrants. They hesitated by that open aisle seat before passing me by. Just then I saw ferret-face get on the train, looking for her best opportunity.

Behind me I heard a woman offer a seat to someone, and then an Indian-accented voice politely decline. Ferret-face passed me by, then began demanding someone move.

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Further Setbacks in the War for Couth

I’ve stopped using BART regularly for my morning commute. Whether or not our so-called economic recovery has been jobless, my anecdotal experience is that the BART trains are now regularly packed with commuters headed somewhere, so much so that when I went in early one morning last week, on the train at 6:15 a.m., it was already standing room only into the City. SRO? At 6:15?

My feet, knees, and ankles are no longer what they were when I ran cross country all those years ago,  and years of standing on buses and trains have taken their toll. I need to sit. So I’ve been doing the casual carpool thing. Most often it’s quiet and uneventful, but every so often there’s a livewire.

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