Barb’s Burblings

I stayed a bit late at work on Monday because I had my book club that night, and we weren’t meeting for dinner until 6. I figured I’d leave around 5:15. So I sat at my desk working, vaguely aware of people leaving, tossing off a casual goodbye as the people around me took off. I wound up heading to the Silver Spring Metro around 5:10. The platform was full of people waiting for trains going either direction. I made my way down the platform; I’d be going to Gallery Place, and the exit I wanted to take would be at the back of the train. But the signs weren’t indicating any approaching trains, and in the announcement, I could make out the words “Shuttle bus” so I decided to take a bus.

(Side note about the ride itself. It followed Georgia Avenue, and I noticed this fun spelling of the word “Georgia” at one of the stops.

Click to enlarge, then marvel! People, hire proofreaders.)

It wasn’t until I got to the restaurant and Becca called that I started to get an inkling of what was going on. She was the one who told me about the collision; she was the one who said that people had died. My companions went to their iPhones for details; we fielded calls from family.

The city wasn’t sure how to work without the Red Line. There were long lines at bus stations up and down 16th St. I squeezed onto one, and just in the nick of time–we had to pass stops because the bus was full. (I also got to deal with a fun young woman. We were all packed into the aisle of the bus and she was standing in front me, passively-aggressively bitching into her phone how men wouldn’t give their seats up for her. [You know, because she's a woman.] The guy next to where she was standing said that he had his hips replaced, which she related to her friend, then said, “But that doesn’t explain why the guy next to him isn’t giving up his seat.” Because clearly that would be super easy to maneuver. After a few minutes of this, I finally said something like, “Why should they? You seem to be fine” and she was all, “That’s just how I was raised, we don’t all have to think the same about this,” and I was like, “You’re right.” We gradually made our way back in the bus as people got off and a seat opened near me. She was totally gunning for it, and I gestured for her to take it. She responded to this by saying, “That’s why you don’t have a man.” And then spent the next 5 minutes bitching about me to her friend, taking particular triumph when I myself sat down. Good times!)

Anyway. I made it home and saw the coverage on tv and was thankful that I was safe. Because who would take of my cats if something happened to me? Colin isn’t the easiest to love.

Then, Tuesday morning at around 10:55 we get an email. There’s an emergency all-staff meeting. In 5 minutes. We immediately know that someone from the office was involved in the accident. Standing around the conference room, I look around, looking for the people I know well. The room is pretty much silent. Then the CEO came and said that one of the crash victims was Mandy Doolittle. Mandy, whose office is literally across from my cube. Mandy, whom I had distractedly said goodbye to the evening before. Mandy, whose laughter annoyed me, but was so sweet, so caring, so lovely, so interested in other people, and so quick to laugh that I couldn’t help but like. We weren’t close (except for the physical proximity of our workspaces), but…what? How?

It’s not a surprise that someone from my office would’ve been on one of the trains. Heck, one person in my department was on one of the trains behind the trains that crashed. But there’s something just incredibly surreal about it. Seeing her picture on the cover of the Post? Having the news come to video some of us and the memorial someone set up? You know that obviously there were victims, victims who had family and friends and coworkers. But it’s not supposed to be someone you know. It drives home the whole “You never know” concept. Because…it could’ve been me. Easily.

I grieve for Mandy and her friends and family. Though we’re used to coworkers disappearing through normal turnover, there’s something so incredibly different about this. There’s no sticky on her door saying when she’ll be back.

Instead, there’s a sticky on the door with a heart on it.