"Getting There"

There is a heavy price to pay for leaving the house! By noon on Sun. the weather looks like it might have cleared up enough to go to Book festival. Although I tried to arrange for a ride in advance it didn't look like that was going to pan out.

I called Jack's cab service and surmised that they'd give me a hard time since I didn't have an exact address. I told the dispatcher that I wanted to go anywhere in Mt. Vernon.

Dispatch- "You don't have an address?"

E-"No. Just take me anywhere in Mt. Vernon, it' doesn't matter where."

Dispatcher-"Well, I don't know what to do for you if you have no address, so hold on"

SHe puts me on hold for about 10 minutes and I overhear her telling another employee that I haven't given her an exact address. (But wouldn't a company that's been around for decades know how to get a customer to Mt. Vernon? I guess not)

E-"O.k." "Chase and Cathedral, just get me to the corner of Chase and Cathedral"

(Maybe I should have taken a bus after all)

Dispatcher-"If no cab comes in 20 minutes then call us back"

About 15 minutes passes and my neighbor tells me that there is a cab out in the park. lot. (They are supposed to pull up under the pedestrian bridge, if they don't then we have no way of seeing them, as we wait inside the lobby for our cabs) I go out and the cabbie is about to leave. I tell him that he is supposed to pull up under the bridge. He doesn't understand English.

E-"Do you know how to get to Mt. Vernon?"

Driver-"What?"

E-"Do you know how to get to my destination?"

Driver-"I don't understand"

E-"I assume you're new. " (I think about getting out of the cab right then and there, but foolishly don't) "Please go to I-83"

Driver-"What's I-83, is that 695?"

E-Oh God, I have to tell him how to get to 83 also. I see he has a gps but isn't using it.

Every 5 minutes his cell phone rings. He starts talking in a middle eastern language to his friends and each time he answers the phone he swerves the cab. I think, maybe I should just have him take me to Mt. Wash light rail, so as not to prolong this miserable experience.even though I don't feel safe at light rail either. (I put up a piece on my blog in the beginning of Aug. about my day on the light rail) I try to guide him but I don't know which exit to take off of 83. He drives me around the city for at least 45 minutes in circles lost.

I feel very scared and consider just getting out of the cab in a section of Baltimore that I don't even know, and just hope for the best. He finally calls Jacks and asks them to help him but he still doesn't know where he's going and despite my having given him a map, he types in the wrong spelling of "Cathedral" into his gps.

Everytime I roll down the window for air he rolls it back up again with his electric controls. I keep asking peds on the road if they know where book fest is. I wonder if Ill get there alive. Finally, when I think were near it, I get out of the cab at a red light. The fare is 30 dollars and there is no way in hell I'm paying it, even if I did have it. (Normally the fare would be about 15)

He starts yelling at me about where is his money? I said, I'm not going to pay you, I"ll pay Jack." I wonder if he will shoot me, or start following me. He refuses to drive away, and watches to see where I'll walk. Luckily I lost him.

A little before 4 p.m. I run into A. and L. They parked their car all the way in Hunt Valley which is 10 miles North of where I live. Around 5:30 they begin to worry that they'll get stuck at the festival because they heard that light rail stops running at 7. (Why would a major city stop their trains so early on a Sun. night?) I don't even know how to walk to light rail from that festival, but we just follow the signs. I either go with them to H.V. , take 2 buses home, or hop in another cab, which I don't think I can handle after what I just went thru.

It takes about 20 minutes or so to walk to the light rail. I don't feel safe during the walk or at the stop where a couple of guys are looking us over and making some comments. L. doesn't feel safe either. "Luckily" it was only about a 10 to 15 minute wait for a train, but we aren't sure if we got on the right train or not. I asked one of the riders just to be sure, but he gave us the wrong information. So it looks like we'll have to transfer to another train.

I see a man with open wounds all over his arms and legs try to get on the train. He looks like he's drunk, high and maybe with some disease like ms or cerebral palsy. He has so much trouble with walking and balance that I fully expected him to fall on the tracks and get run over before successfully boarding the train.

He barely makes it onto our car. He falls into his seat, his head is bobbing. His eyes are almost all the way closed. After about 2 stops, he heads for the steps supposedly to exit the car. I fear what will happen next. He falls head first into the stairwell and just lays there in the stairwell. The latino woman on the car with us seems panicked. She has a cell but doesn't know what to do. "She yells to him "are you o.k.?" Obviously not, I think to myself.

I explain to L and A how it can be dangerous to get involved at all with these people even though they need help. I think that telling the train operator would be a good bet, but I have no idea how to do that. Someone tells the man he is on the wrong side of the train to exit. Another rider says: (about the man on the floor) "he's drunk"

The man gets off at falls road but obviously has no idea where he is. He barely made it to the platform.

I tell L and A that this b.s. is a daily occurence with public transit. I explain that no matter how high gas gets people will keep paying it because no one would choose this kind of life over driving their private auto!

It's takes us an hour to get to Hunt Valley. We get something to eat at Cheeburger, Cheeburger and then A. goes to take me home. But she's lost her car keys! When she goes back to the restaurant to look for her car keys her friend tells me that A. loses her car keys all the time and that probably A. will have to call her parents to come to the mall with an extra key, and that her dad will yell at her and give her a lecture. Luckily her keys were at the restaurant and we don't have to wait for her parents to bail her out. L. and A. tell stories about they and their friends having to call back up for crisis alot.

I told them that "you space out because you can. But when you have no one to call in a crisis you learn that you can't afford to screw up!" L. disagrees with me.

I spent 2.5 hours commuting today!

Last year when I took the bus to book fest, the driver was going about 20 miles over the speed limit, ran a red light, nearly hitting a ped. in the walkway. We passengers flew out of our seats and erupted in shrill screams!

Putting a car on the road can't come soon enough.