10 Best Ways to Distract Yourself on BART w/out a…

cell phone

i-thing

game-thing

etc!


That’s right.  I found myself on BART w/out any of the above.

Making matters infinitely, off-the-charts worse is that I also forgot my book!  I was half way through Howl’s Moving Castle (soooo good!…& no, I’m not a young adult…but I am reading The Hunger Games next).

My journey (East Bay to SF/SF to East Bay) could have been the longest, most soul-sucking hours of my life.  Could have.  If not for my trusty pen & notebook.


This is what to do in that situation 10 Best list:


1.     Pen/cil.  Paper.  Stick figures. What can’t you make them do?

2.     Breathe (fresh breath only), then draw on window.  Voila…Condensation Art.

3.     Unintentionally make eye contact w/ the same person about 11 times until you both think the other is a psycho.

4.     Discover a passenger reading The World According to Garp and see if you can tell by looking at their face if they’ve just gotten to a tragic part.

5.     When not in tunnel mode, look @ all the houses & wonder when and if you’ll ever be able to afford one.  Then send out a special curse to the golden parachute crowd @ Goldman Sachs, AIG, & cohorts in which they are left w/ nothing more than a studio apt. & maybe a bus pass…okay, forget the bus pass.  Those thugs can walk!

6.     Devise additional, semi-inappropriate punishment scenarios for Goldman Sachs, et a.  Careful, there is a downside.  Not only can it take up all your travel time, but you might also miss your stop.

7.      Consider televising #6.

8.     Comment/Review on footwear of other passengers – see if you can find a guy in tasseled, Italian loafers w/ no socks and laugh at him.

9.     Roll your eyes @ the passenger currently using all the items you don’t have simultaneously and seriously question whether she’s a fulfilled individual or not…then when you notice the really cool game she’s playing on her game thing…realize she probably isn’t UNLESS she gives you a turn.

10.   Write a story. It won’t kill you.