Stuff you miss while you're listening to podcasts

This morning between the North Berkeley and Downtown Berkeley BART stations, I could hear hysterical laughing from one man over my headphones. I began to notice people around me looking around so I turned around. There was a man in an odd white beanie sitting at the other end of the car. As we pulled into the Downtown Berkeley BART station, two BART cops got on the train where the loud man was sitting with his wheelchair. They politely asked him to step off the train so they could talk to him and he got pretty belligerent. Amongst the things he said to them:

"You're messing with someone and you don't even know the consequences;"

After being told by the cops "Come on, let's go, you're holding everybody up" he replied:
"No, you're holding me up!"

"Get your ass out of my face or I'll punch your lights out;"

and

"I'll beat your ass!"

A few BART police officers have had REALLY bad publicity over the last two years and made (in my opinion) bad decisions. This has led to an overall distrust for and lack of respect of BART officers (though sitting through Voir Dire for jury duty a few months ago made me realize that this distain is not limited to the BART police).

But watching the two BART police officers this morning reminded me of the dangers of generalization. These two officers were patient and gentle with a very belligerent passenger. They kept their cool and never yelled. They could have forced him into his wheelchair but they gave him plenty of space and never came within an arm's reach of him.

Finally, the man conceded and wheeled himself off the train. It very much reminded me of Puck every morning when we try and put him in the living room to leave for work. He backs out and barks, pawing at the ground and growling (obviously, he doesn't want to leave). If you're calm and tell him repeatedly to come, he'll eventually puts his head and his tail down and retreat into the room. Watching the man this morning, it was just like that.

Once he was off the train, one of the officers explained that they had received a call about a disturbing customer and asked if anyone had made the call. One man raised his hand.

It really makes me wonder what I missed while listening to my podcast! I've been on BART with a fair share of disruptive passengers and usually people just ignore them. This man may have been particularly annoying.

Muni

Yesterday on Muni, a guy realized he was at his stop about 5 seconds after we stopped (with plenty of time to exit). Instead of quickly getting up and walking off (or heaven forbid, getting off at the next stop one block later), he dove out of his seat into my back and took both arms and shoved me out of the way. So rude and totally unnecessary!

At the next stop, the next guy to exit the bus was only wearing dirty socks (no shoes).

I think I'll stick to BART.

Books

I have a bad habit of sneaking a peak at what people are reading on BART. I've actively tried to restrain myself from doing this but I inadvertently find my eyes wandering over to a book and reading the title before I am even conscious of what I'm doing. I've also had to stop myself from commenting on their book choices, too. "Oh, you're reading The Hunger Games? Isn't it AWESOME?" or "Look, I'm also reading A Dance with Dragons! Aren't you addicted?!" I'm intrigued when I see someone reading Rick Steve's guide to Prague, ammused when I see someone reading a romance novel (a more-common-than-you'd-think occurrence), and impressed when I see someone reading a classic novel that I've never been able to get through.

I learned my lesson the other day when I glanced at the guy next to me and saw the title of his book: Sex at Dawn. A quick look on the Goodreads app revealed it could be one of two books: Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality, a non-fiction book about the evolution of monogomy (gotta admit, it sounds pretty interesting) or Sex at Dawn: An Erotic Tale of Sexual Hunger. hmmmm....I was really, really hoping for the former. I could not sit there with a straight face if I was sitting next to someone reading an erotic novel on BART.

Did I really learn my lesson? For about two days. Sadly, I'm back to my nosy ways.

Happy Anniversary Puck!

In honor of our five-year anniversary of having Puck, I'm posting pictures of my favorite subject: dogs on BART. Both these dogs did not appear to be service dogs. Even though they're not allowed to be on BART, I'd much rather have them on BART than the dude currently sitting next to me who obviously had too much to drink last night and hasn't had a chance to take a shower.

And I threw in a non-BART but super-cute and recent picture of Puck.

Mr. Magoo

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I estimate that I almost get hit by a car daily when walking from the parking lot to the BART station. You have to have your wits about you! So, you keep your head up, your smartphone in your pocket, and your eyes scanning. It was nothing really new when a man ran a stop sign as I was crossing over to the station today. What was new was that he looked at me and kept driving. Even though I stopped, he came within a foot of hitting me. And then he started yelling at me (it may have been instigated by my dirty look and shaking head). Are you freaking kidding me?! You do not almost hit a pedestrian crossing in front of a three way stop intersection after running the stop sign and get to yell at her. When I first started learning how to drive, my dad instilled the fear of death in me regarding hitting a pedestrian or bicyclist. I would never play chicken with a pedestrian when I was behind the wheel of a car. Being on time is not worth it!

iPhone4

Please feel free to start complaining about the poor quality of my photos.  I need a good reason to upgrade my iPhone :)

A fine line and a large tongue

I've been sitting on one particular post for about two months.  There's a fine line between "documenting" bizarre behavior/personalities and blatantly making fun of people.  I try to stay clearly on the side of documentation, as I don't fancy myself a snarky individual.  When posting something, I play a little game where I ask myself "if you were doing this in public and saw someone post about it in a blog, would you laugh and say 'fair enough!' or would your feelings be hurt?"  If my feelings would be hurt, I don''t post. 

So, when I saw a woman with the largest tongue I have ever seen on a BART platform in November, I was torn.  On one hand, this woman's tongue was something else. It literally could not take my eyes off of it.  How many tongues without tongue rings do you notice on a daily basis?  Probably zero.  This woman's tongue tongue was extraordinary.

On the other hand, it is a part of her body.  A body part I'm fairly confident she has no control over. How would I feel if someone blogged about seeing my freakishly large-for-my-body feet?  And then I looked down and bam! there were her feet, you couldn't miss them!  I haven't seen such large feet on a relatively small body since I was an eighth grade boy... and don't get me started on her big toe!  (By the way, I did not draw this example from thin air.  Many people have looked at my shoes and commented on my disproportionately large feet.  I inherited my father's feet but not his 6'0" height)

I reasoned that if I could rule out any medical disorders or syndromes, it would be okay to post pictures of the tongue.  So, I took to the internet for research with a Google search for "enlarged tongue" and "disorder."  After perusing my favorite medical websites, in my bystander-non-expert-opinion, I don't believe she exhibited any of the symptoms of the most common medical disorders or syndromes which may result in an enlarged tongue.  In all other aspects of her person, she was utterly unremarkable. 

I reasoned that if I avoided insulting words like "freakish," it would be okay to post pictures of the tongue. 

I reasoned that if I approached the story with awe and wonder (which were my genuine reactions), it would be okay to post pictures of the tongue.  After all, if I saw an extremely beautiful person on BART, someone of supermodel status, I wouldn't hesitate to post about it.  This would be similar...

Right?

But I couldn't hit the Publish Post button to my original post.  It just felt mean.  It may work for the characters on South Park and Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I don't want to live like that.

So, this is my compromise -- to share the story with you through sharing my moral dilemma. I hope I haven't offended.