Thanks to Katya Duft at the Tales from the Bus blog, I’m learning that today was Car-Free Day.  Boy, am I a little late to the game!

Of course, I celebrated without even realizing the occasion, but every day is a car-free day for me.  I wonder if word got around, and if others got into it.  I hope so!  I think people don’t like to take the train or bus because they’re unfamiliar of it, which makes the metro a little intimidating.  I love events like these that help encourage people to give the metro a try when they normally wouldn’t.

Before I ditched my adventure wagon (I really miss that car sometimes), I would usually be lazy if I had to run to Vons to pick up a couple of items.  Vons is only about a half mile from my home, and I have numerous mom n’ pop markets in between.  Now I do my grocery shopping all the time by bus.  It can be a bit cumbersome, but there is no reason a car trip is needed to pick up a few times.

Plus, if a new metro rider happened to have been fortunate enough to have been on the ascending escalator in the purple line station at Wilshire/Normanie, they would have gotten to watch me fall flat on my face at the top of the escalator.

For those of you readers who don’t personally know me, let me tell you a few things about me to make this whole incident even better.  My personality has been described to me by many as a warm and approachable person, but once my threshold of patience has been reached I morph into a feral beast.  I am getting towards the ‘feral beast’ end of the spectrum with people who stand on the escalator in such a way that people can’t walk past them.

Tonight on my commute home, I got stuck behind someone who didn’t understand the concept of ‘stand right, walk left’ on the escalator.  “Excuse me… excuse me, may I pass you?”  I didn’t have anywhere I had to be but home.  In fact, resting on the escalator would have probably done me some good.  Sometimes, I just can’t be happy with the situation I’ve been given.  “Excuse me!  Please let me through!”  Well, that came out with more bite than I intended and it sure did get her attention.  The woman leaned out of my way as I squeezed by.  I took one step away and tripped.  I landed sprawled across the moving stairs, and getting dangerously close to the top.  I managed to jump up to my feet pretty quickly, but did get a little bruise to the ego.  I guess that’s what I get for being impatient and pushy!

Lesson learned: relax, and practice patience.