Winds of Ash and Cranky CalTrain Authoritarians

I have allergies.

Living in Silicon Valley does not help matters. It's not the industrial pollution or the spraying of insecticide. It's the dust and the trees. Damn I love those trees, but the fact is that when they begin to release into the air the pollens and other detritus I have to increase the amount of Benedryl I consume. If I balance it right then I do not fall asleep. But if I do not get it right, I get dozy.

I routinely take 25mg at night, sometimes 50mg but then I am compelled to awake up every hour to pee, so despite the deeper sleep it is broken up. Benedryl messes with your hydration.

Why not take a more modern drug? I've tried them all. They suck for a variety of reasons, mostly because despite the claims that they are side effect free they mess with your head (I know the claims for the drugs like Allegra are contrary to this, but it is my experience). And I can't have stuff that affects my clarity of thought.

I've had allergies my entire life. As a boy it was the London air and grass pollens. In France it was the Rape Seed in the fields of the Ile de France, one of which was next to my house.

The effect is more than runny eyes and itching - surprisingly I sneeze only rarely. My allergic responses change my behavior. I get cranky.

If you meet someone that says that I am impatient with fools, then they have seen me during an allergy attack. They are not frequent, but when you exhibit that behavior people think that is how you are most of the time. And the truth is, I am mostly tolerant of fools; I have to be, there are just so many of them :-)

Often I notice the behavioral changes before I notice the physical modifications. If I sneeze then I'm well into it. When I have an allergy attack it is not immediately obvious to me; I am really not aware of it immediately unless I observe the things that cause it.

I don't even notice the severe attention deficit that overcomes me. I'll be absorbed in some work and then find I've spent the past two hours obsessively focused upon identifying the right bicycle pedal for my new bike or some such. Yes, I blame my allergies for that.

This past week has been particularly bad because of the fires in the Santa Cruz mountains. One evening last week we were treated to brilliant red skies and relief from the heat by a cloud of cooling ash that covered the sun in the late afternoon. In Los Altos last week people awoke to find their cars covered in ash.

We are lucky in Sunnyvale in that the San Francisco Bay wind can clear out pollution of this kind eventually. But over the past week the ash and dust from the fire has brought with it a dense array of new irritants. I know this because the air filter that automatically detects such things - and runs constantly in my house - has been full on.

How did I notice the problem? Well, I was riding my bicycle into Mountain View on my way to a meeting in Palo Alto when the CalTrain pulled in heading North. changing tactics so that I would be early for the meeting, and in apparently good spirits, I pedaled like crazy to make the train, I even fast walked the full length of the platform to get to the bicycle car and exchanged pleasantries with one of the conductors, though I did note that she was not a happy sort.

Normally I get a monthly pass for the CalTrain, but just recently I've been buying 10 pass tickets that you have to validate before you board. This is because I've been riding my bike more frequently to Palo Alto rather than taking the train.

Now it is not uncommon for someone with such a ticket to run for the train and to validate their 10 pass when they board. As I understand it this is common and accepted practice with these tickets as long as you ask for your ticket to be validated by the conductor as soon as you board.

As you can tell, I'm already getting cranky about it. I should take another Benedryl.

The official policy is that if the validation machine doesn't work you should seek out the conductor for validation. Both conductors saw me run for the train. Despite later claims by the conductors, the train did not have to wait for me.

Yes, it was a hot day but CalTrains are air conditioned.

So, dutiful user of CalTrain that I am, immediately when I boarded I - in good cheer I thought - asked the conductor to validate my ticket. But no. Officiously he refused to validate it.

Now this was the express train, Mountain View to Palo Alto. I was getting off at the next stop.

"Oh!" I said surprised. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not validating your ticket." Says Philip (yes, that was what it said on his name badge) "You have to validate before you get on. I refuse to validate your ticket." Or words to that effect.

I responded that I was getting off at the next stop in any case, what did he want me to do? He indicated then that "She" was on board today and would be checking the tickets. It was all a little tense and stupid. My first asshole of the day.

He went off, unknown to me he was running to his bitch master.

So I seat myself, still puffing and panting from both the rush to board the train and the minor and unreasonable fracas with fool Philip.

Enter the Dragon. A large, surly and unpleasant Latino woman appears at my side and gruffly says "Show me your ticket."

"Ah" says I, "I assume you have come to validate my ticket. Thank you!" And I hand her my 10 pass.

"No" she says accusingly, "You made the train wait and you didn't have the decency to validate your ticket!"

My second asshole of the day.

Let me summarize events. This is in fact the conductor I rushed past when running up the platform. If I had stalled to validate my ticket, I certainly would have held up the train. Knowing that I could get the conductor to validate the ticket I boarded without further delay. In fact, there was no delay and I was not even the last person to board.

Enter my allergies.

In a loud enough voice I said, "Where the hell did they get you people, Missouri?"

"What did you say?" Bitch fool says to me. And seeing Philip come up after her, I raise my voice a little to ensure he can hear me and repeat.

"Where the hell did they get you people, Missouri?"

Now it was not immediately clear to me why I had referred to Missouri and it was only later that I realized the entire import of my own wit. Missouri is, of course, the "show me" State. She had said "Show me" and my mouth was in control. Although, I confess, even I was surprised by both the intelligence and courage it showed. It wasn't taking any prisoners.

Using any phrase with "you people" is fraught with cultural and racial undertones but it was clear both from my reference to Missouri and the fact that Philip is as white as they come that I had, in fact, made no racial reference. And fortunately, it was not taken that way. But, honestly, it was a close call - if she had been black making such a cultural mistake would have had my ass kicked. In any case, my brain never uses "you people," my mouth did it.

The truth of the matter is that I go out of my way to avoid conflict. I don't want it in my life. But I'm a big burly and threatening kinda guy by virtue of physical form alone. So if I do get a little cranky it can be a little intimidating. If little guys get cranky it's much less threatening.

What is more, I am very fond of CalTrain. My reprimand was in fact defensive, suggesting that these conductors were not the regular cute and cuddly kind. Most conductors on CalTrain are warm, friendly and helpful people.

What happened? She validated and wrote ****WARNING*** in big letters on my 10 pass and they let me be.

The bottom line is two fold. First, I hate being cranky and engaging conflict in that way. I know that the people that saw the incident must think that is how I "really" am. It is not. Second, don't you just hate it when someone underpaid dressed in a cheap uniform plays the authoritarian? I do.

Next time I'll take some Benedryl with me and hand it around. Under normal circumstances I would have been less confrontational. And this term "confrontational" is the main variation in my behavior when I get an allergy reaction. It is not that I seek out conflict but rather that I am less tolerant. I was in good spirits boarding the train, but my mood changed quickly when confronted with a problem.

I wish that didn't happen. Most often in these circumstances in my life I am a tolerant and patient diplomat. Always I am instantly forgiving. No exceptions.

It is worth observing that if I had not volunteered to have my ticket validated then no-one would have noticed; no good deed goes unpunished. Conductors that treat customers with hostile contempt are bound to meet problems like this. As I left they were sharing stories with each other about the maximum number of tickets they had experienced can be issued on a single journey from San Jose to San Francisco: sad, and very un-Californian.

But anyhow, sorry Philip, sorry Bitch from hell :-) I forgive you.