Too close for comfort on the Fremont line

she/he shared seat
Photo by Flickr user fotogail

This story came to our inbox from BART rider Nikki.

I am a daily BART rider. Generally my BART rides are uneventful. I have my bart buddy in the morning, usually my iPod and a good book. On the way home it is very much the same, except for last night. I hopped on the Fremont bound train at 5 o’clock on the dot. It was a full train and the only seat available was the handicapped seat next to the door. I sat down and figured if someone who needed it boarded I would move.

I had my head down while I was digging for something in my purse…when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone was getting ready to sit next to me. Generally no big deal…except that I suddenly realized that this person was practically sitting ON ME. Thigh to thigh, and very uncomfortable. When I looked up there were two ladies sharing ONE SEAT NEXT TO ME!

I absolutely do not like being that close to someone I do not know. So, I politely asked her if she could move over or simply get up as where she was sitting was not intended for 3 people. She pretended like she didn’t understand me. Great.

So I decide that I will try to scoot over some more in order to try to get a little more comfortable. Unfortunately, the lady interpreted this as her opportunity to SCOOT BACK more! I am raging at this point…and all I can think about is the disgusting idea of someone I DON’T KNOW practically sitting in my lap. We are now steadily approaching San Leandro station, when suddenly these two ladies have no idea where they are, AND amazingly enough they can now speak and understand English clear as day!

They were so far off from where they needed to be that I took quiet pleasure in the fact that they needed to be at 19th Street in Oakland and we had just stopped in San Leandro…gotta love that BART!

3 comments

  • jeff

    this post reminds me of something i saw on Eye on Blogs yesterday about buying two seats on public transit if you need two seats.

  • I’m an RTC card carrying disabled person but I seldom claim the front seats. This one time though, I felt myself having an aura (pre-seizure) and needed to sit down quick. An old lady was in one handicapped seat with her newspaper in the other, reading cross seats. I asked her to move it. She spewed Cantonese at me, so I sat on her paper. Then I was out for a while, floating off into seizure-ville. I could feel her tugging on my bum, but she had to wait.

  • Jace

    I remember once on the bus there was a guy who kept hitting me with his backpack (that he still had on his back) and I kept sliding over to get away from him and for some reason he kept sliding closer to me to hit me with his bag. When I tried to talk to him, he didn’t ‘understand’ English or he was ‘deaf’. So I again moved away, only to have him move closer. So I turned around and started poking his shoulder to get his attention. Well maybe a minute later of me poking his shoulder, he finally decided to turn around and I told him to move the f*ck away from me, to stop hitting me with his bag or I would stuff down his throat so far that it would come out his a**. Now, I’m a fairly petite woman and he towered over me but I was so fed up and teed off that he moved to the back of the bus. And a few of the people around told me ‘Good job’.

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