A few weeks ago on the Red Line, a woman spilled her coffee all over the floor. The woman, who had a young girl with her eating a doughnut, had been trying to balance too many things in her hands. As the T moved, the coffee crept along the train compartment. People used discarded newspapers to mop up the spill. The little girl proclaimed to everyone that multi-tasking was hard. People smiled. Before the two got off at their stop, the woman said how sorry she was for disrupting everyone’s ride. A man sitting opposite her said: “No, not at all. You brought us together.’’ Then we all went our separate ways.

Cherone Duggan / Cambridge