Light in the tunnel

Let me share with you something really quite uplifting that happened on my commute home yesterday.

It was one of your typical (these days) Metro Blue Line rides: through the District, then Rosslyn and Arlington National Cemetery, heading for Franconia. Somewhere in the tunnel before Pentagon we lurched to a halt, and eventually came the announcement (intelligible, for once) that there was a train ahead of us at the platform.

A couple of minutes later, we started up again, went about 50 yards or so and then stopped. Once more the driver got on the horn to say, “There is a train ahead of us on the platform. Train will be moving shortly.”

(As an aside: “Train will be moving shortly” should be the official motto of Metro.)

Then, as we cranked up again and moved into Pentagon station, the driver announced that shuttle buses would be available at National Airport to take “customers” (we’re never “passengers”, we’re “customers”) to stops beyond the airport. “That might change, but as of this moment this train terminates at National Airport”, three stops beyond Pentagon. (By the time we pulled into Pentagon City, the story had become: this Blue Line train terminated service at National; Yellow Line trains were going on to Huntington. Basically, the District version of "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." It makes no sense, but you're in a ramshackle metal transportation box in a dark tunnel; there it is.)

Well, the person sitting in front of me got off at Pentagon, and a young woman who’d been standing for some time grabbed the seat. Then an older woman got on and the younger one stood up and offered her the seat.

Honestly—it was the nicest thing I’d seen all day. Those trains lurch and jerk, and they don’t have sufficient places to hold onto if you’re standing. Only occasionally do you see someone offering their seat to someone else. Yesterday was hot, and the commute less than smooth—and showing all signs of getting worse. That young woman’s gesture reminded me that some people can rise above all that crap and be decent.

It made my day.