"Morning Train (Nine to Five)"

Man, for hating eighties music, I'm using a lot of them for song titles recently.

This morning, like all weekday mornings, began before I woke up, as my body dragged itself to the bathroom to shower. Somewhere midway through the shampoo process my brain finally admitted defeat and woke up. I had once again miraculously managed to shave without cutting myself or trimming off half my 'stache. After getting dressed, I realised that like most Mondays, I had already missed my bus and so would have to drive to the Metro station.

The drive was relatively free from traffic, but the news reports were, bleak at best. Karl Rove is retiring to Texas, to spend more time with his family, which means he's running for office. OK, I might be reading to much into that, but ten minutes into a fifty plus minute commute is no time to find out that the puppet in chief is loosing one of the string pullers. Even if I can't stand the guy, he did run a mean country. I mean pretty soon the only ones holding Bush 43 up are going to be Bush 41 and the VP! [More on Rove and running for office later today!]

I got to the Vienna Metro station and parked. The parking at Vienna Metro is absolutely unbelievable. If you get there after 8:30 (hey, we all sleep in some days) you can't park legally. I mean it. Not "Oh you can but it's a long way and I mean it symbolically". No, after 8:30, every single legal space is full, and the overflow lot stays closed b/c it is only for sports events or stuff going on on the Mall. The side streets are full, the garages are full, people are literally parking in neighborhoods. But today I got there at five to 8 and crowded onto a fairly full train. Vienna is the start of the line, and there were no seats. Already overcrowded. We went two stops and the train began to smell of brakes and ozone and then sure enough at the next station we were asked to disembark and wait for the next train. Ours was having a mechanical failure. The next train comes and everyone on the platform begins to cram on board, and the people on the train get that look on their faces like "I'm not giving up this seat unless that old woman actually falls on me". We play a little human Tetris and all cram on board. For the next 5 stops no one can get on the train. We are so tightly packed that people without handrails are just leaning against those of us with handrails to make sure they don't fall over. When I get off the train I head for the giant escalator up to the ground level. After a quick three block walk I get to work. Ten minutes late.

I'm actually not complaining. No really, I tell this story sort of in awe of the fact that even with a train blowing out on a very busy line during rush hour, I only arrived at work ten minutes late. As much as I complain about my commute, I know it would be worse without Metro. I often wish the train reached further and stayed open later, a la the NYC Subway, but really, I couldn't imagine going back to driving 80 minutes both ways in bumper to bumper traffic every day.