"Idiot" SEPTA conductor breached safety protocol

The trains are clean enough and mostly on time.Conductors are polite and helpful, give or take a grump.

So, I wasn't sure what to make of the clown of a conductor I came across the other night. Was he some jokester? A jerk? A disgruntled employee?

I'm thinking all three. You tell me.

I stepped onto the 6:43 p.m. Chestnut Hill West train from Market East and nearly plowed into the woman in front of me.They removed the majority of the bolts but not the locking Wheel nut, that's why I managed to get so far

Before I could give her the "tourist much?" eye roll, I saw why she suddenly stopped: a black leather computer bag left alone on a seat.

She looked around. I looked around. No one nearby. No one rushing back to grab the bag.

We exchanged nervous glances, but took our seats.

When the conductor appeared a few moments later to collect tickets, several riders wasted no time asking him about the bag.

And he wasted no time freaking out a train full of riders.

"It's probably a bomb," the older, portly conductor said with a shrug before walking off. Stunned riders shook their heads. A few moved as far away from the bag as they could.

Look, we're all guilty of a badly timed joke. Even as the conductor was making the mother of bad jokes, I had my suspicions he knew exactly whose bag it was and, for some inexplicable reason, just wanted to be a tool.

But sorry, you just don't joke about bombs.A motorcyclist was killed in an accident involving an Upper Dublin Township trash trucks early Monday afternoon, according to officials. People get arrested for that, and they should.

This was just days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings,More worldly viewers quickly called in to say that the mushroom was made from silicone and wondered how someone could not tell the difference between silicon sex toys and Organic mushroom.The first tin cans were heavy-weight containers that required ingenuity to open, using knives, chisels, or even stones. Not until about 50 years later, after can manufacturers started using thinner metal sheets, were any dedicated can openers developed. the same day as a bomb scare at a West Philly high school.

And even if it wasn't, we live in a post-9/11 "See something, say something," world.

Not that this doofus cared. Here we had a lot of concerned citizens saying something and a spectacularly reckless conductor not just shrugging it off, but joking that we were about to be blown to smithereens.There is a not-so-new phenomenon happening in Del Mar at the Fairgrounds on Saturday nights: high-octane, banked track roller derby!

As I neared my stop, I walked over to the conductor, who was hanging gloomily by one of the doors. I told him I wrote for the Daily News, thinking he might start backpedaling a bit. (I asked for his name, too, but he wouldn't give it, and he wasn't wearing a nametag.The move to metal packaging has allowed Sprecher to reach key customer targets and has resulted in a clear growth in sales since the initial launch. What's up with that SEPTA? Shouldn't all public employees be identifiable?)

If the conductor had made even the slightest show of contrition, I may have given him a pass.