Caltrain Kathe

Today was one of those rare occassions in the recent past when I had to take the Caltrain to work on successive days. But I decided that I would settle in for a slightly later than the usual one (remember my yesterday's blog). It was raining when I parked my car in the Caltrain station and went to parking ticket machine. The machine looked different from the ones' I am used to. (since I was taking a different train, I had to go to a different station as well). After a bit of confusion, I figured how to get the parking ticket. I inserted 2 , dollar bills .... the machine promptly printed the ticket .... but wait where were my quarters ???? Wasn't the parking fee $1.50 .... besides I needed those quarters for my muni tickets .... the damn machine would not give back change!!! That was the beginning to my bad journey in the caltrain today !
The train arrived on time and I boarded the first car (or boggie for the uninitiated). I settled on a comfortable seat. A gentleman with Laptop, coffee and newspaper settled in front of me. Now ... what do I do during the Caltrain ride everytime .... I promptly catch up on my sleep ! But that was not to be today .... just as I was about to close my eyes, the driver honked. My eyes were wide open by this annoying loud sound (kooooooooooooooooooooooin). I was never disturbed by the honking during any of my rides .... the first car had its set of disadvantages I thought !! ( I usually sit in the third car) The driver honked and honked for no particular reason and the kooooooooooooin sound lasted for atleast 8 secs every 5 secs..... man was it irritating or what !! I was too comfortable to find another seat ... besides I had to rush to catch the Muni in SF downtown.... so I decided to bear with the noise!!
In the next station, a young hispanic lady (lets call her H) got into the train and sat next to the gentleman who was still reading the paper (was he able concentrate I wondered) and soon a young Asian lady (Lets call A) sat next to me. The rest of my ride comprised of watching the activities of the people in my car ! ( I simply had to kill time) H had a book in her hand ... but as soon as she sat, opened her make up kit ! She started applying make up on her face ! She patiently applied a lot of things ( you see I couldn't stare at her .... that would look odd ... but every now and then I looked at her, she was applying something).Meanwhile A was busy reading a newspaper and promptly fell asleep! I hate those who can sleep even with an annoying sound like koooooooooooooin deafening your ears ! When we were almost close the downtown, H was finally done with her make up. She picked up the book she had. " Ah ! Finally " ... I said to myself . But hey ... she was no way going to look at the book ... she had to make sure, her make up was perfect !! She looked at her shoes, her clothes, her hair ( I must say ... her hair was messy ). Now she got back to her book and pretended to be reading ... but I knew she wasn't .... she wasn't even looking at the same page. Perhaps she was not able to concentrate with the annoying sound !
It was not just the honking .... there were intercom messages every now and then ... the regular annoucements about the train stations ... and of course the conductors having loud discussions !! Lets just say ... it was not a pleasant ride.
Before my head would burst out with all this ... I thanked my stars coz we had reached downtown and rushed out of the train. I swore right there that I would never again sit in the first boggie.