It’s been a moderately rainy spring, but I’ve only been caught in one torrential downpour. It was last summer or early fall. I don’t remember exactly when, but I do know the exact skirt and sandals that I was wearing. For some reason I took a different train home and ended up needing to transfer at an outdoor platform two stops from home. It was almost dark and past rush hour, so I had to wait 20 minutes for the right train! Just as I was boarding the train for the last 5 minutes of riding, the sprinkles started. By the time I got to my station, it was torrentially raining. I had an umbrella, but it really didn’t matter since the rain was coming down sideways. I ran across the street to my condo building, but my skirt and legs were completely drenched. Thank goodness I could just dry off and put on pajamas instead of having to sit at my desk for an entire day.
I learned an important commuting lesson relatively early in the summer: pick up your feet to walk! During morning rush hour, you can’t really walk independently in such a mass of people; you just shuffle along with the crowd. This is also the case for loading and unloading the trains at peak times. I was part of a huge crowd getting off a train one morning. As a group we just sort of fell out the doors when they opened. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the trains can be so loaded down with people that the car actually sinks below the platform due to the weight. As I shuffled/fell out of the car onto the platform along with everyone else, the front of my foot fell down – ever so slightly – between the car frame and the concrete platform. I sort of stumbled and involuntarily made a weird little scream, but the jarring motion of the car rising (as the people rushed past me off the train) brought my foot out after just a brief moment. I lost some shoe leather, some skin and some pride, but learned a valuable “life lesson.”
