Commute

This was the worst morning commute in ages. The train was late. So of course it was crowded, but I managed to get on. The air conditioning was off (broken, or off because the weather above ground was cooler? I don't know.), and everyone was jammed in like sardines (sardine jam...), balancing as best we could. And the driver was incompetent. We stopped for the first time in the big curve just outside the station. We stopped at least 20 more times before the next station, sometimes going only a few feet before jerking to a stop, a challenge to everyone's balance each time. We even stopped three times on the platform at Central (one was even the correct place to stop). Net traveler gain, of course, so even more crammed in, more precariously balanced. And again lots of stops before Kendall, as if the train were in stop and go traffic.

I gave up at Charles St., my feet hurting, tired of being crammed into strangers on the train. I checked the clock as I left the station: my usual time for the train part of the commute is under 15 minutes. It had already been 17 minutes to go four stops.

The frustration got me walking faster (better to be sweating from exercise than sardine impersonations, after all), and I did the mile or so down Charles Street and through the Public Garden in a quarter hour. I suspect I got in about the same time I would've had I continued on the Halting Train of Procrastination.