Gratuitous Commuter Venting (TM)

God damn and blast the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority!

Ah....just had to say that.

Last evening, thanks to a track failure and WMATA's incompetent attempt to deal with the attendant rush-hour back up, it took me better than two and a half hours to finally get back to Orgle Manor.

A large part of that time was spent on the platform at Rosslyn station along with a seething crowd of fellow commuters. After we had finally crammed on to our Orange Line train at Metro Center and thought ourselves on the way out west, Metro in its wisdom suddenly announced that our train had become a Blue Liner, and thus would be heading instead for Alexandria and points south. Thus, we had to get out again. As we stood there, three or four practically empty Blue Line trains came along for every one Orange Line, and the first three of these were so full that there was no room to get on.

The crowd, as I say, was seething - shouting at the intercom system and hurling abuse at any Metro employee fool enough to show his or her face. As I stood there, I couldn't help wondering how many of these people still thought a guv'mint takeover of healthcare, banking and the auto industry was such a good idea after all.

Oh, and the evening was capped off when I had my toes run over by a fellah in an electric wheelchair the size of a young tank. Yeeouch.