Pants on the Ground

As those close to me well know, I am a devoted planner. However elaborate or simple the plan is, however open-ended or hazy it may be, I still appreciate the fact that one exists.

Therefore, I’ll have you know that I find this guy’s lack of planning quite amusing.

Here’s how it went:

It was pretty late, and my Fremont train had just arrived at MacArthur station. The platform was crowded with late-night partiers heading home from South Oakland’s seedy downtown bars.

As the train boarded, the station agent suddenly yelled over the loudspeaker.

“BART Police, we have a 20 year old male, black jacket and blue jeans, faregate violation, west platform, please respond.”

Great, I thought. My train was boarding at the west platform. Here we go. I looked out the darkened window of the train as the operator closed the train doors for safety.

Suddenly, Mr. No-Plan came running up the stairs and onto the platform, pursued by two BART police officers. The dude’s pants were practically falling off, and he was trying to evade the police while desperately trying to hold on to them.

The guy waddled as fast as he could go while simultaneously holding up his pants. But he didn’t try to run for an elevator, or an exit, or a train. 

No. 

He decided he’d take his chances at waddle-running the length of the platform. Because, of course, he would have no problem evading two flat-out sprinting BART officers while running down two thousand feet of platform while attempting to keep his pants up.

I have no idea what he thought he would do if he beat the overwhelming odds and actually arrived at the end of the platform. There was a twenty foot drop to the electrified trackway. What was he gonna do? Jump, break one or both legs on impact, and then fry in a shower of electric sparks?

Dude, you should have just paid the $2.00 entrance fare. Dying is not worth $2.00.

As you might have guessed, the guy only made it about ten steps before the one of the two officers made a flying tackle that sent the man sprawling. The train began boarding once again as soon as he was captured, and just as the train was about to pull away, I heard the man ask the officers a very important question:

“If you handcuff me, then who’s going to hold up my pants?”