Random bits of whimsy

Commuting, as a rule, sucks.

It's not fun. It's not really supposed to be fun.

Commuting on BART is an especially dicey ride. You never know when you're going to be sharing a train with some wacked-out meth-head, violent nutjob, or just someone who hasn't had soap touch him in a year.

On top of that, BART is an aging system prone to breakdowns. Delays, while not super-common, are also not unusual. If it isn't an equipment failure of some sort, it's usually a medical emergency or some kind of police action.

On a bad day, you can get all three.

Commuting by train has its advantages. Sure, you rub shoulders with some people you usually don't really want touching your shoulder (or any other part), but if you have a book or a game on your phone, there's ways to pass the time.

And it's better than driving, most of the time.

Still, riding BART isn't something I especially enjoy anymore. It's more of a necessity than anything else.

What's helped take the sting away is the neat little things that I've come to notice over a few years of commute. You see, at one station (or possibly more), if you look down at the escalator steps, you can sometimes see that whomever painted the yellow warning markers on the side decided to add a little random smiley face on one of the steps.

I've seen these on two sets of escalators so far. On a really good day, sometimes I see them on concurrent uses of the escalators (assuming they're actually working).

This morning, I got to see both smiley faces I'm used to seeing. It's weird what a strange lift that was to my morning. It's a little thing, but it's nice to see those little bits of whimsy in an increasingly-depressing world.