Non Platinum Behavior - Susan G. Komen Style

Alot of people complain about the Metro behavior of visitors to Washington D.C. The complaints are long and obvious. They stand on the left of escalators. They try to get on the metro before people have gotten off. They don't know how to use the farecard stations. The list goes on and on. While it is always frustrating in the moment, I try to keep my cool about things when they happen in addition to offering help when I can. Being an out-of-towner (like 90% of the city), I remember what it was like to learn the rules of the game, and I didn't have to do it with two kids under five years old nagging me. So I try to cut the tourists a break as much as possible.

The people I don't cut a break for are locals who, for whatever reason, don't obey the rules. Most of the time it is people who don't ride the metro very often and are using it for their once every three months trip into the city for some major event. Enter the Susan G. Komen Race for the cure, happening this morning at the same time I was headed to the BoltBus. I get on the Metro at my usual stop and it's packed. No big deal, right? Wrong. A family has decided to place not one, but two large strollers directly in front of the doors. Now for the 95% of the bus that was going to the Race, this is not a problem. But for the 5% of us that needed to get off before then, it was absurd. People were sucking in their guts just to fit between the crevice created by the door and the family's absurdly wide stroller. Trying to justify the situation, the mother stated matter-of-factly, "The wheels (on the stroller) are locked." I think she meant to imply that this was the reason why she couldn't remove the stroller from the metro in between stops so people could get off. This told me two things about her. 1) She has no sense of metro etiquette. 2) She had somehow forgotten how to disengage the lock on the stroller wheels in the time since she got onto the Metro. I left feeling frustrated at the world and the sometimes unplatinum people floating around it, even when they are on their way to do something I support.

All was better when I arrived at the BoltBus and the bus driver, in a wonderful voice that is impossible to convey through writing, said, "Raphael. I like that name." I'm on wifi right now and going to see friends. Life has moved back to equilibrium.

Random Platinum Link - Charter schools creaming from the "bottom?"