Especially not today when it’s the worst possible weather: snow, ice, rain, sleet, etc. No rays of sunshine in sight. Not above ground, not underground.

So when I see this guy wearing sunglasses on the T, I have to roll my eyes. It’s pretty lame already. But when he’s wearing white sunglasses, he looks even more idiotic. And lucky for me, I got to ride with him all the way to Wollaston, sitting 4 seats away.

Completely unnecessary.

• Signal/Switch Problem at Quincy Center
• Signal/Switch Problem at Broadway
• Doors jammed at Broadway

Needless to say, the MBTA ruined another day by making me cancel my day’s plans since the time I got to Park Street was the incidentally exactly when I was supposed to be at my appointment. At Fenway.

But as the train pulled out of South Station, the conductor comes on the intercom.“By holding the doors, people get hurt that way. So don’t hold the doors.”

Then the usual announcement of “The destination of this train is Braintree” comes on.

And a follow-up message: “And that’s how people get fired around here.”

Well, in that case…

And the best part about all of it was that as the fire alarms went off there were no MBTA officials anywhere to direct riders of where to go or what to do. So I just did what I always do: go down to the Red Line platform and pretended like there was no potential fire and there is no reason the fire alarms are going off. Because, you know, the Red Line would never catch fire. Ha.

Either way, I don’t think there really was a fire, otherwise they would’ve told us and I’m sure service would’ve been halted. At least, I would hope so. But you know, with the MBTA, you really can’t trust them to let you know for sure what is going on around you…because I don’t think station officials know for sure half the time anyways.

If you’re just going from Park Street to Copley, save yourself the trouble of getting on the E Line and just wait 30 more seconds for a B, C, or D line.

It’s such a hassle to even find breathing room on the E Line because it’s the only line that goes that direction, so people who can very well get on any other trolley packing onto the lone ranger Heath Street car make it that much more like riding a Tokyo subway.

I personally stopped riding the E Line after someone jumped onto the trolley and bounced off of me.
After everyone got on, the train was just standing by and I’m waiting for the door to close behind me. Then, I feel someone bump me from behind. I can barely turn to see what happened but I see a girl lying on the ground. Apparently she tried to jump in and push everyone in with her, but instead, she just bounced off and landed on the ground. Somehow she managed to get up again and squish her way into the train anyways, forcing myself and the other girl on the bottom step to have to contort our bodies to let her stand there with us with the other human sardines on the train who are looking at this girl and exchanging looks of “What the hell?” and “That really did happen, didn’t it?”.

So I must reiterate the seriousness of this: Avoid the E Line at all costs if you are not intending to go past Copley!

…Like the well trained sheep we are, everybody got on – and suddenly realized the train smelled like burning garbage.

“It’s just a trash fire on the tracks, not the train,” an MBTA cop reassured us. “It’s a trash fire, not the train.”

More cops appeared on the platform. Then the doors closed and we left.

So my paranoia was not out of line at all! Cheers for me. Jeers for The T.

But today, I had no choice but to go to Forest Hill. As I walked through the concourse between Park Street and Downtown Crossing, I heard music. More specifically, I heard Ne-Yo. Okay, an MBTA station performer’s no big deal. He wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t painful to bear either. Nothing out of the ordinary with him.

What was amusing though was this one middle aged woman in green and peach sneakers getting her groove on and dancing along to “Because of You.” I found this to be so much more entertaining than the performer himself because it was just that awkward. She was so into it. I had to turn away a few times to keep from bursting out laughing, but I, along with others on the platform, had smirks on our faces until the train finally arrived.

But today on the MBTA Red Line, I sincerely believe I had every right to be legitimately worried as my Braintree train went from South Station to Broadway.

Why is that? Because I’m fairly certain the T may have caught fire. Or something.

Now I might just be paranoid, but as my train went from South Station through the tunnel to Broadway, it smelled strongly of smoke. Of course, I’m looking around for flames and such, thinking it might just be a T creeper being a pyromaniac, but when we pull into Broadway, I’m not the only one nervous: riders at the other end of the car were getting off and it looked smokier down there.

As the train was standing by for a minute or so in the station, I watched as the other side of the platform filled with people all debarking their Outbound train. Now I’m honestly thinking something is going on and am expecting to have to get off the T too, but of course, no MBTA officials say anything at all. A woman poked her head out of the train and reported back that the smokiness was only outside the train. So I think that means my train just went through whatever fire, smokescreen, etc. it was in the tunnel. Way to go.

But of course, I’ll never know the full story because not only did the subway just carry on like normal (although we stood by again at JFK for a few minutes), but the MBTA website Service Alerts only lists one Red Line alert:

Red Line is experiencing a 15-20 minute delay between Alewife and Park street southbound due to an earlier disable train. 11/18/2009 3:15 PM

I’m not sure if this had anything to do with my experience, since mine happened about an hour before this alert, but still, the MBTA needs to be better at communicating possible problems on their rails for the sake of already paranoid riders who are jaded by past horror stories of fires on the T.

However, as perhaps the most congested place I am in all day, I think the T should do more than tell me to scour my hands with soap daily; it should help me combat those swine.The reason the MBTA flu PSAs are not enough is because I think the T is probably the filthiest place I am all day. I really believe that if I’m going to get Swine flu or even the regular flu, it’ll probably be from the close contact I have with other T riders every day. Being packed into trains where germs can spread is not ideal for my immune system, so I do my best to try to stay healthy by avoiding contact with the handrails/poles, which I’m sure are germ-covered.

If the T is going to be a huge promoter of my swiney-ness, I think it should take steps to at least prevent it. The MBTA really needs to step up and take responsibility for being a germ-fest and offer handi-wipes and/or anti-bacterial sanitizer at every station. Oh, and disinfecting the gross poles every so often would be dandy too.

Today, the MBTA made it that much harder for Red Line riders to know where the train was going.

As I got to the platform at Park Street, the intercom tells me the next Red Line train to Braintree is now arriving. So I get walk down to where the second car would be and wait just behind the yellow line. But as the train pulls into the station, the digital sign at the front of the train says Ashmont. So I back away. Then as the train continues, the signs on the side say Braintree/Alewife. Now I’m triply confused. And I’m not the only one. Everyone getting on the train asks people already in the car where the train is going. Luckily, I was on the right train, but I had to endure the entire ride with the conductor coming on the intercom before and at every stop, repeating about five times each time that this is a Braintree bound train until we finally got to JFK/UMass. What a headache.

Way to go MBTA for confusing T riders even more.