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Rider Laura has taken the helm of CaltrainDiaries on Twitter, and we will be posting stories from other Bay Area transit systems here on this page. You can follow @CaltrainDiaries on Twitter and send your Caltrain stories to caltraindiaries@gmail.com.

Stories from Caltrain

- Caltrain Candy Man and the Best Compliment by Silvi
- Caltrain sleepcar? by Laura
- Caltrain Good Samaritan? by Laura
- Breaking up is … easy to do, on Caltrain by Laura
- Caltrain Veteran by Laura

Caltrain Candy Man and the Best Compliment

Photo by Julie Michelle of i live here: SF

Ed. note: Silvi Alcivar of The Poetry Store told this story on stage at Muni Diaries Live! last Friday. If you missed her and her beautiful typewriter at the show, here is her story. She was also featured on SFGate this week. Oh, and yes, we take Caltrain and BART stories, too! You can find the rest of Caltrain stories on this page and on our @caltraindiaries Twitter feed.

I was having a terrible morning. Not only did I have to get up at 6:30am after about a week of way too little sleep, I had to get up and get on my bike, to get to Caltrain, to go to Menlo Park to get my boobs squished in a machine. Why did I have to go all the way to Menlo Park for my annual mammogram? Because I’m a poet, and poet’s don’t have health insurance, at least I don’t, and the free breast screening program I’m enrolled in meant I had to venture out of the city if I wanted to make sure my boobs were cancer free.

Not only did this feel like a hassle, I was also so broke that I almost couldn’t justify paying $12 for a day pass. I thought maybe I could get by without one, but I didn’t want to chance it, so I dished out $12 I felt like I didn’t have.

Thanks to the timeliness of Caltrain, I arrived at my appointment proud of myself for being half an hour early. I’m never early. Ever. When I went to lock up my bike, crap! I didn’t have my lock. I walked in, bike in tow, and a man appeared out of nowhere and started ushering me and my bike out. “No, no bikes in here, just leave it out there.” He pointed to a far away space not within easy eyeshot of anyone, let alone me, who was going to be in another room, getting her boobs squished in a machine. “Look,” I told him, “this bike is worth more money than I have right now. I can’t risk anything happening to it.” He gave me a look that told me he obviously was not a bike commuter, or even a bike commute appreciator. I begged the receptionist and finally she let me leave my bike right outside the door.

When I went to check in, sure enough, they had no record of my appointment. In fact, the receptionist informed me, “But we don’t do mammograms here.” A phone call or two later it turned out I was sent the wrong paper work and sent to the wrong place. A woman on the phone told me, “Your appointment is actually in San Mateo in 10 minutes.” “I’m on my bike,” I told her, “and on Caltrain, there’s no way I can’t make it.” She offered to pay for a cab. I was so frustrated and disappointed I couldn’t even talk because if I talked I was going to cry. She asked if I wanted to reschedule and I choked out, “Not. Right. Now.” Then I retrieved my bike from the place it remained perfectly safe and I headed back to Caltrain.

Of course, when I got there, I had just missed the SF train and had to wait. When finally I got on, all I wanted to do was close my eyes and disappear. Lucky for me, no such thing happened. It was about 10 a.m. or so and the bike car was virtually empty, but of course, some guy decided to sit right in front of me.

When the ticket guy came around, he looked at my ticket and said, “Geez, that was a short day trip.” I almost told him, “Thanks for rubbing it in!” Instead, I said, “Well, sometimes you don’t end up where you’re meant to be.” He replied, “That good, huh?” And I said, “Yep,” wanting the conversation to end right there because I was feeling like I might just cry again.

Then he reached into his pocket and said, “I think I have something that might make you feel better.”

For a split second I was so creeped out. And then he handed me a piece of chocolate. And I felt like a little girl being comforted by her oh so loving father. And I almost cried again.

And then, because I believe in proper expressions of gratitude where they’re due, I wrote the candy man a poem.

Directions
for the Cal Train Conductor/Ticket Guy

Somedays people send you in
directions you are not meant to go.
These days,
you need strangers
who offer you candy.
Of course you eat it,
forgoing age old advice,
trusting kindness
sets the right direction.

When I gave the conductor candy man the poem, he almost cried, folding it into his pocket, telling me I made his week. Meanwhile, the guy sitting across from me had been watching this whole thing, and you could tell he was kind of wondering where his candy was. So the candy man gave him some. And we were all happy. And I thought that was the end of it, so I closed my eyes, finally, but then, the guy started talking to me.

It was small talk, I’m talking to you on public transit kind of talk. He asked me what I do. And I said, “Well, I’m a poet.” And without even a little pause, and so much enthusiasm, he said, “You mean, like a genius?”

I didn’t know what to say. That was the best compliment I’ve probably gotten from anyone, especially on Muni.

So, I went home that day not knowing whether or not I had cancer, but at least I knew I was a genius.

Caltrain sleepcar?

From astute reader Andrew, who snapped this on Friday, the day a pedestrian fatality caused delays in the a.m. commute:

Spotted on the south-bound 210 on Friday morning. Snoring away. Obviously she’s not too worked up about delays related to the hit pedestrian (which was referred to on Caltrain info boards as an “obstruction”).

Got a story from Caltrain, Muni, or AC Transit? You know the drill: Submit your story here.

Caltrain Good Samaritan?

Twitter user @TexasGirlErin posted this image on TwitPic with the caption: “There are still good people in the world. Caltrain tix lost anyone?”

If your credit card starts with a 5 and ends with 356, send an e-mail kulida@bloguje.cz to claim your prize!

Breaking up is … easy to do, on Caltrain

Photo by Flickr user ruba8

Caltrain is generally thought of as a somewhat civilized form of public transportation. People get on, open their laptops, read their newspapers, and generally keep to themselves. The one exception? Cell phones. For some reason, people forget that when they are riding on the train and talking on their phones, other people — lots of other people — can hear them.

A month or two ago, I sat in front of a man who was on the phone with his best friend’s girlfriend — whom he had recently slept with. He was trying to convince the woman to leave the friend and hang out with him.

On a recent morning, a very impassioned woman on the SB 220 was on the phone with her boyfriend. Things… things did not seem to be going well in this love affair.

“It’s not the drugs, it’s not the alcohol. It’s you,” she said into the phone. “It’s always about you. I need you to agree not to call and harass me at work anymore”

I will give this woman credit — for whatever the drama was, she managed to maintain an infuriatingly calm tone throughout the conversation.

And so it continued.

“You promised you’d never put your hands on me. And last Friday night you did. You promised you’d never raise your voice to me. And you did. You promise me you’d never put me on a bus when I was drunk — and you gave me money when I was wasted and left me on the bus.”

[Side note: It probably says something about a relationship that the boyfriend promised the girlfriend not to put her on the bus when she was drunk, in the first place.]

From there, there was discussion of how he hadn’t picked up a recent phone call when she’d been in an accident, and how it could have been a call to say she was dead, but that he was too busy to answer the phone.

And then finally, the kicker: “I just can’t do this anymore.”

All in all, probably a good decision on her part. Dating someone who promises not to put you on Muni when drunk and then goes back on their word — that’s unforgivable.

Caltrain Veteran

From rider Jason:

10 PM Northbound local Caltrain on Monday, November 30, 2009. I board at Palo Alto.

I get on the train at Palo Alto, and an older man comes onboard the train by himself about two stops after me. I notice immediately that the has somewhat of a disheveled appearance, and he tries to take off his jacket by lifting it over his head. His t-shirt ends up over his head as well. I also hear what sounds like pills rattling and the man is carrying a small brown paper bag that I assume is filled with pills of some sort and carries a large coffee.

Once he sits down, I immediately noticed a white wristband, looking much like a hospital wristband. The man takes it off and rests it on the table, without breaking it. He puts on reading glasses and begins checking a early-2000′s Nokia cell phone. Moments later, the conductor comes around to check tickets. The older man pulls out his wallet, seemingly completely unaware of Caltrain procedure. He asks the conductor how much a ticket is, and the conductor responds that it depends entirely on where the man got on and where the man is getting off. The man responds sayings “I used to be able to pay onboard.” The conductor, responds by saying “Really? When was that?” No doubt, he knows something is up with this guy. The man explains that he was just discharged from the VA and is headed to Millbrae to head to the East Bay. He also says that he was confused and thought he was getting on an Amtrak (Amtrak doesn’t run to Millbrae).

The man gets up to check his bag (supposedly for a ticket and also to show the conductor his discharge papers from VA), which appearantly is not on his person and is on the very lowest part of of a new caltrain. We’re sitting in the section before the stairs to the upper level. The conductor waits patiently for the man to check his bag (or whatever he was checking) and the man comes back, ticketless. The veteran has no tickets, and the conductor suggets alternatives, and says ‘do you want a citation?’ The veteran, somewhat defensive, says ‘Well, if I’ve broken the law, I guess I’ve broken the law. What do you want me to do?’ The conductor responds that the man could get off and buy a ticket. The verteran also mentions that “I’m on a lot of medication right now.” The conductor seems sympathic to the issue and asks the man about the hospital wristband. The conductor seems satisfied enough by seeing the wristband and moves on. The vertern seems perturbed, talking under his breathe, gets up to put his jacket on and walks off the train, getting off at Hayward Park Station, 1 or 2 stops before Millbrae, waving goodbye to someone on the train, I believe.

I’m left a little confused by what I saw. Frankly, a man in that bad of shape should not have been released from the VA hospital in his condition, and certainly not this late at night. Granted, he might have been discharged hours or days earlier, but sitting here watching this man struggle, and seeing how spaced out he was leaves me sad that this man is having so much difficulty, when all he probably needs is stability and a little help.

Thought that you could pay on-board.

Send your Caltrain stories to caltraindiaries@gmail.com. Follow @CaltrainDiaries on Twitter.