Two hours. It took two hours to get to work. I live five miles from the office. I could have walked it faster, but I only do that in the early summer when I'm really, really motivated and Thursday morning, it was all I could do to pry myself from the couch, my flannel pajamas and a sweatshirt, the laptop.
I lost 20 minutes to a frantic search for my badge and SmarTrip card. Another few minutes as I detoured to check out my car, parked on a side street, and some time just because I was slow, cold, wearing a skirt on a very skirt-unfriendly day. At the station, I lost a few more as I recharged my card with the Metro checks I could have used a half hour earlier in lieu of the card that I eventually found on the shelves, wedged between box and wood.
I missed the first orange line train and let the blue line pass. Standing on the platform, I waited. Reading my book. Watching the display. Fortunately, I was early and the train, the one I ended up riding, was a little emptier than the first two. I found a seat, tucked into my book and rode to work.
Most of the way to work.
Somewhere between Rosslyn and Courthouse, sometime after I finished my first book and started a second and the girl next to me moved to let me rise, the train stopped. I stood by the door, hanging onto a pole, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
"Excuse me, passengers. There is an
emergency at Clarendon Station. We will be moving momentarily."
I shifted from right foot to left and back again in restless anxiety, hoping to inch forward so I could leave the train and start my day, a day I would have much rather spent wrapped in flannel and fleece, napping on my couch and working in peace. Instead, I stood and waited. Hanging from a pole. Book in hand. Reading Peyton Place on the morning commute.
"Excuse me, passengers. There is an emergency at Clarendon Station. We will be moving momentarily."
The conductor broke into my anxious reverie once. Twice. A couple of dozen times. We never did figure out the nature of the emergency and we did not move momentarily. We sat and waited for 45 minutes, almost an hour, somewhere between Rosslyn and Courthouse, under Wilson Boulevard.
"Excuse me, passengers. There is an emergency at Clarendon Station. We will be moving momentarily."
The girl who let me up had moved to my seat. A man took hers. I had nowhere to sit. I briefly considered sitting on the floor but my useless skirt and valiant hope kept me upright. Hanging on a pole. Waiting.
"We will be changing direction, going back to Rosslyn," the conductor announced. Minutes later, ages later, he passed through the car, lumbering his way to the last car of six, the first car of six.
"I feel for you," a woman told me. "That was your stop. You were so close."
We talked about the commute – she had been on track to be early to work. We would both be late. We talked about books and the Avon Breast Cancer walk. We talked about Arlington. Rosslyn. The inexplicable emergency in Clarendon as we waited under Wilson Boulevard.
Back in Rosslyn, at the station, the entire train heaved its passengers onto the platform and we climbed the immobile escalator up one level and rode toward the street. Full shuttles waited on the curb as the masses pressed futilely toward open doors. The crowd on the sidewalk grew, milled, huffed in frustration as a woman flagged me down, "Hey. Hey! Are you going to the office?"
"I know this woman," I thought, once I moved past the temptation to ignore the crazy lady. We worked together, supporting the same client, and she needed to get to my office for a meeting. Of course, she had no idea how to find it.
"We can wait for a shuttle or we can walk... It's about three-quarters of a mile."
She agreed to the walk and we headed uphill, steadily climbing to my office, making small talk, forcing small talk as we barely knew each other. We noted the girls in heels who considered the same option but bailed out, midwalk, to flag down cabs, limping toward the curb.
Heads down, we kept going and made our way to the office. To start my day, a day I would have much rather spent wrapped in flannel and fleece, napping on my couch and working in peace. I showed up two hours late. I stayed two hours late.
"Excuse me, passengers. There is an emergency at Clarendon Station. We will be moving momentarily."
Right.
Tag:
Work Commute
Unfortunately, much like its namesake, the story moves at its own sluggish pace, leaving the viewer desperate for more of the sweet sustenance that binds it together: Music.
