I understand that real estate on metro during the morning rush is valuable. Seats are like renovated row-houses with updated kitchens and ornamental fire-places: coveted by many but allocated to only a lucky few. Upright in the middle of the car is like the outer burbs, not too bad a spot but you get some elbow room and it’s really only inconvenient when you have to fight your way out to get where you’re going, not unlike the commute from Reston or Rockville. Standing room by the doors is a good location but sort of like living in Arlington, not as cool as, say Capitol Hill, but convenient and reasonably comfortable if you don’t mind crowds. But there are some folks for whom that Arlington-equivalent-near-the-door-on-the-pole spot is the Greatest Space They’ve Ever Occupied. That 4.5 inches of pole they’re clutching is the Source of All Their Power and they are not letting go. Not even if they are standing in smack in the middle of a doorway and the train is at the platform of one of the busiest stations on the Red Line and people are surging past them on either side and in both directions. No, they stand, like a rock in a stream, hanging onto the pole for dear life, never budging an inch because heaven forbid they lose their grip on the Pole of Power! The consequences are really unthinkable.
Consequences like me ramming my stroller into the back of their legs while I try to exit the train to get C. to daycare. Oh. Did that hurt? Sorry.
