Hold the Doors!

Anyone who has ever ridden a subway has at one point in their life just missed a train. We all have stories about watching the doors close right as we are about to board the car. (Someday I’ll get around to writing up my story, trust me.)

It is sadly humorous to occasionally see businesspeople in full suits or high heels sprinting down the platform only to miss the train by inches, but hey, as the old saying goes: “You wait for the train.”

So I was nearing the end of my commute, and was just about to leave Ashby BART station on a northbound Richmond train. Downtown Berkeley, my stop, was just three minutes away. Three minutes. Three short minutes.

A familiar ping sounded over the car’s PA system, letting passengers know that the doors were about to close, and if you didn’t want a severed arm or leg, you’d better stay the f*** away. It was at that moment that a youngish dude decided to run down the escalator, holding on to his falling pants for dear life. He stuck his Air Jordan in the closing door in order to make the train.

The doors reopened for a second due to the blockage, and the robotic digital BART lady yelled over the intercom that, “the DOORS in this car are OBSTRUCTED. Please stand clear of the doors so the train can DEPART.”

I had figured the guy would go and sit down, but when I turned to look he was STILL STANDING holding the doors open. The nerve of the guy.

It was at this point that the operator decided to intervene. She activated the PA system in the train, and said, “Hey, buddy, you better let go of my doors!”

The dude craned his neck out of the train car and looked back up the platform.

“Hold on!” he called. “There’s a disabled person coming!”

All the while, the train’s computer is trying to close the obstructed door, and at fixed intervals, the angry subway robot lady is digitally yelling “the DOORS in this car are OBSTRUCTED. Please stand clear of the doors so the train can DEPART.”

“The DOORS in this car are--” *doors try to close* “the DOORS in this car are OBSTRUCTED. Please stand clear of the doors so the train can DEPART.” “the DOORS in this car--”

The operator was back on the intercom. “I’m gonna call the po-lice! You’d better let go of my doors!”

Now everyone in the car was craning their necks to watch the drama unfold.

“Hold ON!” The dude called.

Just then, a skinny guy in an oversized South Pole T-shirt waddled into the car holding up his pants. The dude and the skinny guy sit down, and the doors finally close.

A passenger from the front of the car yells, “He ain’t disabled!”

The dude looks down the car, grins, and yells back, “My bad!”