Practical Statistics

There is a science to picking a seat on public transportation. Well, maybe its an art. Not sure how those are technically defined...but there is at least a... detailed seat-picking method that I could flowchart for you, if I were really geeky. Which I am. But I am also lazy, which (at least today) is winning. To get a feel for the system, you have to first understand that the optimal seat varies by any number of factors:

• Service: MUNI, Bus, Caltrain
  
• Time of day: rush hour, versus the "second" morning train, versus middle of the day, versus weekend...
  
• Stop you get on / off at (can't go to the back if the bus will fill up just after your stop and not empty by the time you need off)
  
• Specific seat configuration: The seattle caltrain cars have weird split level, always facing someone seats, where the japan-style cars have the up-top "onesies"
  

This all translates into one giant mental map. Service and destination gives you optimal times which yields likely available seats. Personal preference to avoid socialization and cramped-ness at basically any cost gives us an order of preference. Onesies always beat potential people facers. Leg room trumps proximity to horrid smelling bathroom (actually "the hell away from bathroom" could be its own category). Warmth beats access to exits. The rules are simple and finite; like poker only you're gambling for comfort with no chance of actually winning anything.

Theoretically I can traverse this decision course in the ...oh... 30 seconds or so between the time I get to a vehicle and the time the people behind me start grunting impatiently for me to "sit the f' down". But there are always kinks in the chain.

...Is it better to catch the baby bullet and risk standing for 45 minutes or wait an extra 15 and be guaranteed a singlet seat? Dunno. Depends on whether or not I have morning meetings and whether I went to the gym the night before.

...Will the bus on Wednesday be crowded enough to fill those otherwise oh-so-comfy sideways seats?

...How many old people are likely to get on between stop X and destination Y? Can I chance the "reserved for seniors and people with disabilities" section? Well...how much stuff am I carrying?

...Is there a Giants game? Pretty much all bets are off and its time to throw elbows for Giants games. Damn drunk people.

And all that doesn't even take into consideration those things you can't really decide on until the very last second. The "Weird Smelly People, Creepy Chatty Guy, Rotten Banana on the Seat" factor. For all that mental optimization and rules developement there's a definite bent of "the best laid plans..." to riding public transportation. I guess systems, even finely tuned, over-thought-out ones, are not really such if they can't fail.

Which would be how last Thursday I found myself in the best possible seat option right up until the last 2 minutes before the train left and some strange girl demanded that I move my legs and allow her to occupy the approximately 1sq ft of room across from me, while she coughed uncontrollably and unapologetically the entire ride home. Awesome. Saturday I really did sit next to a half rotting banana on a full-stop Caltrain, which was determined to be a step up from sharing a 4-seat combo with obviously smashed teenage girls. Oh, the humanity!

So much for the practical application of statistics... the price of gas will be dropping any day now, right?

Dead Weight

For this story to make sense, you have to picture a body bag. Yes, a body bag. You've all seen CSI or some similar show, right? So you know what I'm talking about when I refer to those big black zippered bags that the unsuspecting hookers always find themselves stuffed into after they decide to stop servicing the generic lowlife who treats them badly. (Or they would find themselves in such if they weren't, you know, dead.) Actually, think bigger than that. Think of rows and rows of those sacks being dragged around by medical professionals as they try and control the Ebola virus on one of those science movies you watched in middle school.

Ziiiiiiiip. The pulltab goes up over the face.
Thump! Bump! The bags get dropped into a pile.
Weird plastic rustling sound. Heavy sacks get dragged to an unseen, yet assumed depressing location by the still living, barely-holding-on-to-sanity-type drudges in white coats.

Got that picture? Not so pleasant, right?

Now add about 50 petulant teens and twenty somethings arguing in high pitched voices. Throw in some overly loud, extremely dramatic motherly wailing. Remove the sweaty jungle scene and put everyone in a room the size of ...well, my living room. For the sun, add extremely bright, scorchingly hot spot lights every four or so feet. Replace the medical professionals with middle-aged overly perfumed women in sweaters (but keep the body bags), and you've got the scene I was facing last Saturday. Scared yet?

Last Sunday I was forced to go to the bridal shop went to take possession of my wedding gown before they sent it back to wherever in Spain it came from. Apparently the momentous occasion of picking up an overpriced beaded gown that takes a full six months to craft needs to be accompanied not only by a credit card to pay for the thing, but also an hour long modeling session in which you stand on a pedestal wearing a still ill-fitting dress, stuffed into loaner shoes and "pick accessories." Seriously. And if you're lucky like me, you get to do this during April when both "prom season" and "wedding season" are in full swing. (Who decided those things get to have seasons anyway? Me and that guy should have a talk.)

So I show up, put on a dress that is destined to fall off of me at *any moment* unless I magically hit a second round of puberty that puts me up into a D-cup, and let one of aforementioned hostesses place me on a pedestal. Literally. Like generations of women haven't fought tooth and nail to get us down from these things? Bah! Moving on. While I bake under the hotlamps (which in 4" heels, I am freakishly close to) and my assistant flutters about hunting the perfect veil, I attempt to keep my upper half from its imminent public debut by holding my breath and chanting "Its going to be ok. You can do this. You aren't 15 and retarded. No breathing, it'll fall down. its ok..." Its actually working pretty well until...

THUMP! BAM!
"But Mooooooooooom, I wanna...."
Scraaaaaaaaaape
"WHADDAYA MEAN I CAN'T SPEND $4K ON A DRESS?! ITS MY DAY!"
Ziiiiiiip!

And so forth. My reverie is broken by designer dress corpses being dragged about the store to pacify whiny teenagers and their horrid entourages. How do these workers put up with this? How does anyone? I mean, these people are obnoxious! Maybe the worst women are getting knocked over, zipped up and dragged out back, unbeknownst to the normal people. Maybe the overly hot lighting causes convenient "fainting spells" to facilitate stuffing the dead weight into readily available sacks. Probably not. But it seems somehow appropriate.

Musing, standing, and not breathing, I break out into a sweat without really doing anything. Damn, I hope this doesn't mean I have to pay to have this dress cleaned before it even fits. Eventually I pick a ridiculously-so-far-over-there-should-be-another-word-priced piece of net with ribbon around it, stuff my dress into its very own body bag and make a beeline for the door. I spend the rest of the day swallowing Advil trying to combat the second worst headache ever. Up to this point wedding planning has been fairly painless for me...but I'm beginning to see why some people break out into hives over it. I wonder how much else I can do via the internet...