Kindness of Strangers

I was totally zoned out on BART this morning, when a ruckus on the loud speakers and the groans of other passengers' shook me out of my stupor. We were being diverted away from San Francisco towards Lake Merritt--one station south of my normal Oakland comfort zone--because of a fire on the tracks. The driver dolefully announced something like, "get off this train. . this train is bound for an unknown destination," which cracked up some of the passengers despite our irritation. "I want to go to the unknown destination!" Shades of the twilight zone. I blearily stumbled out into the station's sunshine--totally disoriented and unable to locate even a familiar corner, let alone the Lake (I guess it's a few blocks north of the station). After letting my boss know that I had no idea when I'd make it in, I called my friend Steve, who has lived around there, asking for a recommendation for a nearby wi-fi cafe where I could work until the problem cleared. Then one of my fellow passengers--the one who'd declared an interest in the unknown destination--offered me and two other ladies a ride to San Francisco with his girlfriend who had come to pick him up. Since they didn't bother introducing themselves, neither did we, but it was a fairly friendly chat ride over on the congested bridge. I told them about the Emperor Norton. When she dropped us off at the Embarcadero we eased our way past KGO Channel 7 cameras filming a segment with a reporter. When I got into work, Steve called me back and ended up putting me in a story--so now the kindness of strangers is enshrined on the SF Business Times website.