Tuesday

More Metro slapstick today. I left the house pretty early (for me) and headed up the orange line to Farragut West to eat a panini for lunch. Leaving the station, I passed several metro police officers running the other way. "I just saw him go down," one yelled into a radio. On the street, cop cars were screeching to a halt at the corner. I just walked to lunch, and then headed to the other side of Farragut Square, switching over to the red line. Reentering at Farragut North, I noticed there was a fire truck and emergency vehicles parked across the park at Farragut West.* There's nothing about any of this on the news. Underground, I realized it was already rush hour. Trains come twice as frequently between four and six, but they're all really overcrowded. Even the new eight-car jobs making their appearance this year are standing room only all the way down all eight cars. I let the first three trains pass me by, hoping the crowds would lighten while putting off the inevitable. I barely squeezed onto the fourth train, crushed together with everyone else trying to preserve our strangers-on-a-train dignity. When they announced the doors were going to close, we all crushed-in a little harder to make sure no one got caught. Apparently someone caught somewhere, though: the doors sprang back open, and since we were crushed harder together, another dude jumped on. He did it while saying something like "shwoop." He was a very large man, and when the doors began to close on him, he crushed us all in a little tighter to avoid them. I was no longer able to scream in terror, or grab a handrail, or protect my wallet. I just stood there all the way to Maryland. [Cavin]