Tap, grunt, grimace.

I take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit for those of you non- San Franciscans) often. Usually uneventful, the trips are fast and allow just enough time for me to text the person I am meeting to let them know I am on my way (read: late). However, there are those special days when a trip on BART offers an entertainment experience unequaled on MUNI or in a car.

Yesterday, I took BART to the Embarcadero to see a movie. I am used to taking BART for just one or two stops; so this, being five stops away was already shaping up to be an epic journey. I like BART. Different from MUNI where people huddle en mass near where the door opens and then force themselves forward like salmon into the exiting throngs; BART crowds stand in line awaiting the next train. When the train arrives and the doors open, passengers enter and take their seat or stand off to the side – usually away from the doors. There are times when BART trains are packed sardine-can like, but I seem to unwittingly avoid those times. Admittedly, I live in a romanticized version of BART transportation. For the most part.

I boarded my train and took my seat, phone in hand. As I started to text my ETA, an elderly man sat across from me. He was dressed the way my dad used to dress. He had on green pants, a multi-toned green sweater, black shoes, black belt, green socks and, of course, a white and blue pinstriped oxford under the sweater – the collar peering out just enough to say “I don’t match.” What got my attention though was the mass of electronic cords and devices surrounding him.

A  gigantic set of headphones surrounded his neck. They may have been wireless or perhaps they were a battery-operated radio headphone, but they had no cord connecting them to anything. On one hip, he had a large beeper-type device affixed to his belt. On the other hip, a carrying case for a large phone. On his lap sat an external zip drive (remember those?) with a tangle of cords around it, mirroring the white hairs that tangled around his head. In one hand he held a touch-screen cell phone, and in the other…a ball point pen – pointed and ready to be used as a stylus on the aforementioned phone. Techno-phile grandpa. Good for him.

The train lurched forward and as it did, Grandpa made a forced noise. I thought maybe he was caught off-guard by the trains’ motion, until he made another similar sound seconds later. I looked up to see him aggressively attacking the touch-screen phone with the ball-point pen and grunting in frustration. Tap, tap, tap, grunt. Tap, tap, tap, grunt, grimace. As he leaned forward peering more closely at the screen – as though giving it dirty looks would somehow guilt the screen into allowing the ball-point pen to work on it – some of the hairs from the top of his head began to fall slowly forward, like an antennae extending mechanically out of his head.

I wanted to interrupt him and ask him if he was sure he could use that kind of pen on the screen. But, as we pulled into the first stop, he opened his hip-carrier and removed a very low-tech notebook. The cover was folded back revealing a page with many scribblings, which he began frantically adding to. I looked at it, unable to make out the words and imagined it to be a list of the issues he would be covering with the unsuspecting tech-support person he was currently on his way to see.

“why can’t I write on this screen?”

“Why won’t these headphones work?”

“How do I get my pop-tart out of here?”

“Is it going to be toasted properly?”

I know that isn’t fair; he seemed a relatively on-the-ball old guy. As he got up to exit, perhaps coincidentally at the stop next to the Apple  Store, I wished him luck. I also hoped that the line at the store wasn’t too long; that pen is going to run out of ink soon.

Advertisement