5 trains, 5 hours, and only 5 miles - Part 2

Continued from Part 1... Now I’m so late there is no way I can make it home for my conference call, so I got to a park, that happens to be a dog park, and sit on bench and call in. I tell my co-worker I’m in a dog park, but that the dogs are mostly catching balls and she says she can’t hear anything and the client will never know (the client is suppose to think I am sitting in my office).

While on my call a small French bulldog jumps onto the bench and then proceeds to curl up in my lap. And his owner is just watching! I push the dog off (much to the dismay of the owner who is now giving me dirty looks) and proceed with my call, acting as if nothing happened.

About 10 minutes later a puppy basset hound walks over, his ears so long he is about to step on them, and he is too adorable so I give him a quick pet, then back to the call. Clearly he disagrees. He starts barking at me to pet him again. I’m saying sorry to the client, and trying to explain, my colleague is laughing and the only thing I can say is: “you never miss a call with a client.”  After a group laugh, we go about our call and wrap up. As we’re saying goodbye my phone dies, I run into a restaurant frantic and ask if they have a payphone, she looks at me like I asked if they have a time machine and says, very slowly, “noooo” while shaking her head. I say I’m desperate for a phone and another patron offers hers. I call and explain; they are fine.

So I grab a sandwich from the restaurant (the least I could do) and walk up to the N platform to ride home. The sign says the next one will be here in 20 minutes, and the one after that will be here 5 minutes later – clearly there has been a problem and they are all stacked up. So I sit down, on the concrete, and eat my sandwich.

Twenty minutes later the N comes and it is so jammed with people they are literally hanging onto each other. The 20-minute wait put me over my four hours, so I had to buy another $2 ticket.

We go one stop and the driver says, “the subway has been closed, everyone get off and walk to Church Street to pick up another train.” That stop was so close I could have thrown my sandwich at it from where I waited! So with 200 other angry passengers I get off and walk through the Castro to pick up a different Muni. I get on the platform with half the angry passengers (about 100 people) and the announcer says, “All trains have been stopped. We don’t know how long.”  Predictable.

Men with flashlights are walking through the subway and all I can think of are scenes from Law & Order – maybe someone jumped, maybe they are looking for a gun, maybe they found a runaway...

Twenty-five minutes later the trains start working again and come to pick us up. When I finally got home, it was 5 hours later, 5 different trains, and only 5 miles round trip.