The doors slam shut as you barely make it in.  You are suddenly shoved against 75 other people as the train lurches forward.  The ”pleasant” musk of your fellow passengers fills the air as the air conditioning breaks down and any air flow in the car goes dead.  On the upside, you only have another 45 minutes before you get a seat. 

Does this sound familiar?  You guessed it, I’m talking about public transportation.  A large portion of the nation’s workforce use public transportation on a daily basis to commute to and from work.  The sheer variety of the people who ride public transportation gives rise to a fertile breeding ground for hilarity.  In particular, I’m going to talk about some funny happenings on the Washington, D.C Metro system but I’m sure these could be adapted to any number of cities.  This will be the first article in many, as I have a treasure trove of these bad boys stored up.  Now, on to the show.

One day I’m waiting for my train to come, business as usual.  While I wait for the train, I begin to wander, people watching.  It never ceases to amaze me all the different kinds of people who ride the Metro.  Anyways, I see a few other business people, nothing special, when a lady with extremely long hair sidles up next to me to wait for the train.  I begin to ponder: “Where does she work?”  “Who wears their hair that long?”  “Do Johnson & Johnson sponsor her hair?” “Could I get somebody to sponsor my hair?”  “Where is the nearest Burger King?”.

The train comes, we both get on.  It’s pretty packed, I get stuck in the middle, and she ends up having to lean right up against the door.  The doors close, and the train begins to move.  I happen to look in her direction, and I see something funny.  She is really close to the door, not just packed close, but like she was glued to it.  Upon closer inspection, I notice that she has a pained look on her face, and her head was bumping against the door every few seconds.  Then it hit me:  She had her HAIR stuck in the door.  It must have happened because she was so close to the door when it closed.  I started to chuckle.

Wait, before you yell at me, I know it had to hurt, but I mean, come on, her HAIR was stuck in the door!  How often does that happen?  Heck, she could cut her hair you know…wait…I just started to laugh again…ok I’m better now.  Lucky for her, the Metro stops are generally close together, so she only had to endure it for a few minutes.  At the next stop, she jetted out of the door like a jack rabbit, I assume to go wash her hair since the Metro doors are pretty nasty.

Check back for more Tales of the Metro in the following weeks.