I'm Nicole and I live in DC. I'm a writer, knitter, cat lady, social media lover, nonprofit worker, and beer and food enthusiast. Want to know a little more about me? 
Riding the metro in the morning is one of the most somber experiences I’ve had. No one makes eye contact, no one smiles, no one talks. You don’t want to be that guy who has the sniffles because the few people who are awake, will look up from their books or newspapers to give you a dirty look. Other times of the day, some passengers seem to think there are no rules applicable to them.
If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s people who willfully break the unspoken rules of general politeness. I’m not a always stickler for rules (unless it involves board games) and have a lot of different parts of my style and personality that contradict each other (i.e. having a ton of tattoos while also owning practically the entire Ann Taylor Loft collection), but there are certain ways you must behave in public, especially if there are others around.
I never seem to have an exceptionally good or bad metro experience; they all seem to be equally infuriating. I’m not one of those people who is an impatient traveler and commuter, so it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. It seems like every trip I take on metro I get put in the direct path of the few types of people that really get my blood boiling.
So, here are the four worst metro passengers I come across every day:
- Parents with strollers: I’m not a horrible person; I understand that you need to bring your kid on the metro. I will probably do the same. But let me ask you a question: would you bring your double-wide stroller on the escalator at the mall? No, you’d take an elevator. Why can’t mall-etiquette/safety be applied to the metro? Not only is it frustrating for the people who like to walk up or down the escalator, but it’s extremely dangerous.
I once watched a woman pushing an empty stroller on the escalator while holding her very young baby in her arms. After two steps, the escalator jolted slightly causing the stroller and the woman (who was still holding the baby) to fall backwards. People behind her fell like dominoes and the escalator jammed. This is still the worst, and most terrifying experience I’ve had on the metro.
- The Seat Hoarder: I loathe anyone who thinks their bag deserves a seat more than my tiny self. I also think it’s pretty selfish to sit so you’re purposefully taking up just the teeniest amount (so it looks like you’re not purposefully doing it) of the seat next to you so someone won’t sit there. Look, I get it. I don’t want to sit next to you either, but as my dad reminded me so frequently when I was sick in high school, you have to do a lot of things in life you don’t like.
- Tall People (yes, all of you, I’m sorry): It’s not that I have anything against tall people, they just can’t understand the plight of the short person on public transportation. You really shouldn’t lean against the entire vertical rail just because you can. There may be people, like me, that would appreciate being able to hold on to the vertical rail because we can’t reach the ones more than a foot above our heads.
- The Important Guy: This is the guy who thinks he’s more important than everyone else on the train either because he’s wearing an expensive suit, has a lot of messages to check on his BlackBerry, or has a messenger bag with a defense contracting company’s logo on it. Everyone in DC is important (or at least they think they are) and has somewhere to be, you’re not the only one on this halted 8 car train that’s annoyed. Take a cab.
When you’re gearing up for certain death and the impending apocalypse, there are two things that immediately come to mind: food and sex. So, maybe certain death wasn’t approaching, but everyone in the DC metro area sure as hell acted like it was. People all across the area stocked up on food and condoms, like never seen before.
I didn’t succumb to the fear of impending starvation or a few days without sex. Instead, I headed out to Arlington to get snowed in with two friends with a well-stocked pantry. They had plenty of food to keep the three of us alive (and very full) for several days without having to go to the grocery store. On my way, I stopped at a vegan bakery to get some delicious cupcakes, but the next day, we really started cooking… literally.
A few weeks back, a friend invited me out to the Peacock Cafe in Georgetown where I had the best breakfast I’ve had in my 6 years in DC and I’d been wanting to recreate it ever since. My friends had all the ingredients – pancake mix, bananas, walnut, and maple syrup – to recreate this magnificent concoction and it was almost as good as the restaurant.
Not too long after breakfast, we gathered more ingredients to make some slow-cooked chili. If you don’t know me personally, you wouldn’t know that I’ve never consumed an entire burger in my life, and have only attempted to eat ground meat three to four times. We added a package of cooked, ground turkey, kidney beans, six cloves of grated garlic, spices galore, and onions. My lack of experience with ground meat excluded many other things from my diet including chili, but I was bound and determined to give it a try and see how much I hated it.
This was actually my second bowl of chili that evening. Immediately afterwards, I told my friends I felt I’d been cheated by parents who always told me I didn’t like things before I had a chance to try them.
Throughout the course of the weekend, we spent most of our time eating, playing board games, and watching people shovel out their cars too early. I was so moved by my chili experience that, before the second storm, I decided to brave the storm and get ingredients to make my own chili. I have a new affinity for black beans so I found a recipe that was more suiting to my taste. Not only was it my first time making chili, but it was also my first time cooking ground meat. I was surprised at how much moisture the turkey had, so I strained all the juices out of my tomatoes – big beginner’s mistake. Instead of coming out as a chili-type thing, it’s more like a ground turkey stew (but delicious nonetheless).
While all this food was delicious, I don’t know if my stomach – or my waistline – can take any more back-to-back snowstorms like this for awhile.
Filed under: The District
I’ve lived in a large, urban city for quite a while, and few things really have the power to surprise me. Also, as a single woman, I do my best to take all precautions to protect myself and be safe at all times.
There are still those moments when your guard is completely down and urban life comes back and smacks you in the face… or puts its hands on you unexpectedly.
Last weekend, after a long night of board games and pumpkin cheesecake, I left my friend’s house in Crystal City and made the late-night journey back to Woodley Park, via Gallery-Place Chinatown.
While this is one of the more lively metro stations late at night, I still feel quite comfortable sitting on a bench, with my headphones on, drowning out the world at 1:30 AM. Most people on the metro respect the headphones and don’t attempt to talk to you, but there are always those who go against the norms.
The 17-minute wait for the next Red Line train acquainted me with nearly every type of Washingtonian: the underage drinkers stumbling their way back to American, the preppy kids wearing their brown flip-flops and North Face jackets in December, the hipsters on their way to Adams Morgan (I guess I’m included in that group), the out-of-towners who should’ve been back at their hotel much earlier, and the homeless man betting on the odds that one of them will be generous and help him with a dollar or two.
Eight minutes to go and the homeless man approached my bench. Neither of my two bench mates obliged the homeless man. He stepped away for a few seconds and I thought I was in the clear so I nuzzled into my scarf a little more. At that moment, the man decided that, if I couldn’t hear him over my headphones, he was going to put both his hands on my shoulders to get my attention. Boy, did it ever.
I’ve been riding the metro late at night for years and have never had this happen to me. For some reason, the only startled reaction I had was to shot out, “NO!”
What are you supposed to do in that situation? If I didn’t have headphones in, I would’ve politely said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything on me,” and my night would’ve been completely unmemorable. Instead, this unexpected reaction to his unexpected action makes me feel both guilty and violated to this day.
Kids do the darnedest things on the Metro. I ride it every day yet would never think to do the things they do: twirling around on the railings, pretending to surf, memorizing all the stops on Red Line, and even sitting on the floor.
Most of the time I only notice the bad kids. I’m, admittedly, one of those people that isn’t even close to having kids, yet I think I know how my kids would behave in that situation. When I take a step back and realize I’m criticizing a stranger, I feel guilty.
Then, I think about it a little more. Would I call my son Gigi Wolfboy on a crowded subway car? Would I allow him to go up to people and sniff them and growl at people who backed away? No. I wouldn’t. And, yes, that’s an assumption I can make without having children.
Occasionally, I wrestle with the feelings of wanting to yell at their parents for letting them do the things they do at inappropriate times and wanting to get up and join them because I’ve never had that much fun on the metro and I’ve probably ridden it more than a thousand times.
Tonight, I saw the most well-behaved children I’ve ever seen on the metro. One girl was sitting on the floor because the train was empty, but had the appropriate impulse to get up and find a seat when it started to get crowded. They were having a polite conversation, holding on to the railings without letting go, and talking to their mother in a normal voice. Yes, they were all siblings and they didn’t hate each other and they weren’t yelling or doing anything obnoxious. They were so good, I almost wanted them to do something bad so I remembered they were kids again.
Filed under: The District | Tags: brooklyn, cspan, dc, health care, politics
I used to think of myself as “cool.” When I lived in Brooklyn, I was surrounded by a sea of much cooler people who knew it and constantly showed you just how lame you were.
I lived in D.C. for five years before moving to Brooklyn and never realized how much D.C. culture had worn off on me. For the longest time, I’d do things that I thought were normal, but Brooklyn people didn’t get…
I waited for people to de-board the train before I got on.
I’d go straight home after work instead of go to two happy hours, a concert, and stumble home.
I talked politics regularly.
I had hobbies outside of work.
While these habits seem normal and healthy, they were very un-Brooklyn. I almost always got home at a reasonable hour and kept up with all my television shows. Also, every Sunday, I was basically unreachable because it was football day. Toward the end of my stay in Brooklyn, I slowly started to change my habits and started going out more and more.
Now that I’m back in D.C., I notice myself quickly falling back into my old D.C. habits. I won’t go out on Thursday nights because it’s Must See TV on NBC (!!!). I vow to clean my apartment every Sunday, but wind up watching the Redskins lose instead. I’m also home every night by 6 or 6:30… if I go to happy hour, I’m home by 8 (in New York, I didn’t even get off work til 7).
Last night, Saturday night, I promised myself I would go out and do something. A friend was having a party in Virginia, other friends were out and about in the city, and there were plenty of movies playing that I wanted to see.
Instead, I stayed home.
What does one do at home on a Saturday night when nothing’s on but Law and Order reruns you saw during their original airings?
Watch the House of Representatives approve the health care reform bill.
Yeah, I’m 23. I shouldn’t be doing that. And I know it. The funny thing is, I wasn’t the only one who did it. Based on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, I was not the only person I know who stayed home to geek out with CSPAN (although, I might’ve been the only one who teared up a little).
Only in D.C. can I get away with these uncool behaviors and I like it.
