Dear PoPville – My Painful Experience on Metro

Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC

“Dear PoPville,

I was riding the metro on my way to get my kid from school. After a long day of work I was tired and kind of falling asleep when the train arrived to a station and I heard someone banging on the window near where I was sitting. A group of loud teenagers got on the metro playing and cursing really bad. Oh well. One of them sat next to me, I was trying to not pay attention to what they were doing or saying, but then I started to realize that they were talking about me, “…because if you…(I didn’t understand what he was saying), I’m going to whoop your ass!” They repeated this several times.

I decided to not confront them, but at the same time I decided to not go away. I was the grown up there, and I was not going to be bullied in that way, and apparently they didn’t like it. At some point two of them stood up and pretend to be fighting in front of me. I knew what was coming, so I got prepared. One of them started pushing the other one to make him fall on top of me; all I did was to wait for him with my elbow out (I’m thin man so my elbow is kind of sharp), so every time the other one pushed him, he found my elbow in his back, it happened 4 or 5 times. The one that was pushing the other then had the audacity to ask if he could use my phone. I said “sure!” in a very sarcastic way. “I’ll let you dial the number” he said, and I replied “yeah, right”. After that, the same two started fighting until one of them got the cell phone of the other one. They kept being loud, and they finally got off the train at the U Street Station.

I feel sad for them, and hope someday they realize how wrong it is what they are doing. I had no time to file a report since my kid was waiting for me, and honestly, they are teens so nothing was really going to happen to them. I think I did the best I could given the circumstances, and just wanted to share this experience with fellow PoPville folks.”